FDM / FFF machine guide
Every setting that lives on a FDM / FFF machine - what it is, what it does to a price, and what a typical value looks like. This mirrors the machine editor field for field.
A machine in Quotometry is a real machine in your shop. It carries its own hourly rate, its own build volume and its own speeds, and a part is priced on the machine it would actually run on - not on an average of everything you own.
You can have as many as your plan allows, and several configurations can share them through the Library. If you buy another one of the same model, copy it and change the name.
Every setting on this page
These are in the same order as the editor, with the same help text. Each one has an anchor, and the ? beside a field in your console links straight to it - so if you are reading this because you clicked one, the setting you were looking at is highlighted.
Machine: printing
Nozzle diameternozzle_mmbasic
The nozzle fitted to this machine.
Price: A bigger nozzle lays down a wider, taller line, so the same part takes fewer passes and prints faster.
Typical: 0.4 mm.
Outer-wall speedspeed_outer_wall
Print speed on the visible outer perimeter.
Price: Usually the slowest and most-used speed on a thin-walled part, so it dominates its print time.
Typical: 80–150 mm/s.
Inner-wall speedspeed_inner_wall
Print speed on the perimeters behind the outer one.
Price: Affects any part with more than one wall, which is nearly all of them.
Typical: 150–250 mm/s.
Infill speedspeed_infill
Print speed for the sparse infill inside the part.
Price: Dominates the print time of thick, solid-ish parts.
Typical: 180–300 mm/s.
Top / bottom speedspeed_solid
Print speed for solid top and bottom layers.
Price: Slower than infill because the surface has to look right; drives the time on flat, plate-like parts.
Typical: 150–200 mm/s.
Support speedspeed_support
Print speed for support structures.
Price: Supports are usually printed fast because they are thrown away.
Typical: 120–180 mm/s.
First-layer speedspeed_first_layer
Print speed for the very first layer.
Price: Slow on purpose, for adhesion. It is a fixed cost per part on the plate.
Typical: 30–60 mm/s.
Max volumetric flowmax_flow_mm3_s
What the hot end can melt.
Price: Caps every speed × layer height × line width.
Typical: 12–25 mm³/s.
Acceleration lengthaccel_length_mm
The distance your printer needs to reach full speed.
Price: Parts made of many short moves never reach their nominal speed, and this is what models that. Set it larger for a machine with soft acceleration.
Typical: 5–15 mm.
Heat-up + calibrationheatup_s
Heating the bed and hotend and running any start-up routine, before the first layer.
Price: Charged once per plate, so it is spread across everything on it.
Typical: 300–600 s.
Cool-down + releasecooldown_s
Waiting for the plate to cool enough to release the parts.
Price: Machine time you cannot use for anything else, charged once per plate.
Typical: 180–600 s.
Power while heatingheat_power_w
Power drawn while heating up, as opposed to while printing.
Price: Only affects the energy line, and only if you charge for energy.
Typical: 300–500 W.
Overhead per layerlayer_overhead_scalibratable
Fixed time per layer: the Z move, retractions, the slicer's per-layer work.
Price: Multiplies by layer count, so it matters most on tall parts at fine layer heights.
Typical: 1–3 s.
This is one of the numbers the calibration tool can fit from jobs you have already run, so you do not have to guess it.
Overhead per island per layerisland_overhead_s
Extra time per separate island in a layer.
Price: A layer split into many small islands costs more travel and more retractions than one solid region.
Typical: 0.5–1.5 s.
Travel factortravel_factorcalibratable
Share of print time spent travelling rather than extruding.
Price: Scales total machine time directly. It is the single most useful number to calibrate, because it depends on your firmware and your parts.
Typical: 0.08–0.20.
This is one of the numbers the calibration tool can fit from jobs you have already run, so you do not have to guess it.
Flow efficiencyflow_efficiencycalibratable
How much of the nominal extrusion actually leaves the nozzle.
Price: Below 1.0 the machine is slower than the arithmetic says; calibrate it rather than guessing.
Typical: 0.90–0.98.
This is one of the numbers the calibration tool can fit from jobs you have already run, so you do not have to guess it.
Spacing between partsplate_spacing_mm
Gap kept between parts on the plate.
Price: A bigger gap fits fewer parts per plate, so each part carries more of the plate's fixed cost.
Typical: 5–10 mm.
Plate utilisation capplate_utilisation_pct
The most of the plate you are willing to fill.
Price: A cap below 100 % is realism about nesting and adhesion; it makes each part's share of the plate larger.
Typical: 70–85 %.
Plate preparationplate_prep_min
Cleaning the plate, applying adhesive, loading the file.
Price: Charged once per plate and shared by everything on it.
Typical: 1–3 min.
Part removal per plateremoval_per_plate_min
Getting the plate out and onto the bench.
Price: Charged once per plate, whatever is on it.
Typical: 1–2 min.
Part removal per partremoval_per_part_min
Getting one part off the plate.
Price: Charged for every part, so it is a large share of the cost of a small one.
Typical: 0.3–1 min.
Enclosureenclosure
Whether this machine has a heated or passive enclosure.
Price: No price effect on its own - it decides whether materials that need an enclosure can be quoted on this machine at all.
Typical: On for ABS/ASA/PC machines.
Hardened nozzlehardened_nozzle
Whether this machine has a wear-resistant nozzle.
Price: No price effect on its own - it decides whether abrasive materials can be quoted on this machine.
Typical: On if you run carbon-filled or glow filaments.