"New to This - How long do prints take?" Topic

Considering picking up a Anycubic i3 Mega. They're ~$250 and seem to be usable with minimal set up time.

I want to use it to print 28mm buildings for WW2 and Fantasy gaming. What sort of print time am I looking at for a 15cm x 10cm x 6cm individual level of a building? I've seen estimates from 5 hours up to a day or more.

Fat Dragon says you can print a single 2in x 2in dungeon wall tile in 4 hours. Is that still accurate? seems really long. Maybe I need to callibrate my expectations before I dive in.

Depends on your printer and print settings you use. On my Prusa Mk2, I can print a 2x4 tile in about 2.5 hours.

I am printing 15mm buildings. I start the print before I go to bed, and it is usually done in the morning. Obviously 28mm buildings will take longer. 6-12 hours for a print for a building is common.

Once you've learned the machine you can leave it running over night, but at first you need to watch it in case things go south. Additionally, you can only run it over night if you can put it somewhere it won't spoil anyone's sleep – some of these things make noise.

Print time is tremendously variable, but 5-24 hours for 6x4x2" seems right.

One thing I did was print a small but somewhat challenging model with three different layer heights and three different nozzle speeds for a total of nine models. The print times for a 1" diameter, 1.5" tall figure varied from 12 to 32 minutes, so now I have a way to correlate time and quality, etc.

I've been printing some Space-Hulk style corridors lately.
A wall 3" long x 2 1/2" high x 1" max. base width takes about 3 1/2 hours. I'm printing at .1 layer height to get better detail.

As Andrew says the printers make a lot of noise – squeeks and whistles. Once you get used to how they print various things you can leave them to print and check in every hour or so.