Category: Power Consumption

Because I think to power a Makerbot from a car battery, I spend a little while checking the power consumption of a Makerbot.

The main board connector feed the main logic, the plastruder and the heated platform, while the hard drive connectors feed motors and leds.

I used an old ATX connectors and made four groups of wires : 3v3, 5v, 12v and ground.
The remaining wires (5VSB, /PS_ON, PWR_OK, -12v and -5v) where directly connected to the main ATX power supply.
I did the same with hard drive connectors, I disconnected 5v, 12v and ground.
Then I plugged not less than 5 “multimeters” between each power source and ground to record all different current consumption.

So I wrote this sheet :

Voltage	Average	Maximum
MB 3v3	very few	very few
MB 5v	200mA	350mA
MB 12v	2700mA	3500mA
HD 5v	30mA	50mA
HD 12v	1000mA	1700mA

The average power consumption of a makerbot with heating platform seams to be around 70W and the maximum power consumption around 85W. Differences may apply due to the custom configuration, it’s just an overview.

My custom heating platform is made of three 2.2Ω resistor in serial on a 3mm aluminum plate.