MJF / SAF machine guide
Every setting that lives on a MJF / SAF 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: build & consumables
Layer thicknesslayer_mm
The layer thickness this machine builds at.
Price: Divides into the build height to give the layer count, which with the time per millimetre gives the machine time.
Typical: 0.08–0.12 mm.
Keep-out borderborder_margin_mm
Powder kept clear at the edges of the build envelope.
Price: Shrinks the usable envelope, so every part's share of the build gets larger.
Typical: 5–15 mm.
Typical fill height (0 = full)fill_height_mm
How high a shared build is usually filled.
Price: Parts taller than this force a taller build and pay the extra height.
Typical: 70–90 % of Z.
Warm-up per buildwarmup_min
Bringing the machine and the powder bed up to temperature before the first layer.
Price: Machine time charged once per build and shared by everything in it.
Typical: 45–90 min.
Build time per mm of heightmin_per_mm_heightbasiccalibratable
Recoat + expose per layer, expressed per mm of build height.
Price: The main machine-time driver.
Typical: 5–8 min/mm (SLS), 3–4 min/mm (MJF).
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.
Natural cool-down per buildcooldown_min
Letting the cake cool naturally in the machine before it can be broken out.
Price: Machine occupancy you cannot use for anything else. It is usually the largest single time in a powder build, and it is real.
Typical: 8–14 h.
Fast cool-down per buildfast_cooldown_min
Cooling in a separate station or with forced air, when you offer it.
Price: Frees the machine much sooner, at some risk to part quality. Only used when the cooling strategy is set to fast.
Typical: 3–6 h.
Rate charged while coolingcooldown_rate_pct
Share of the hourly rate during cool-down.
Price: A removable build unit frees the machine: charge less.
Typical: 50 % (build unit), 100 % (in-machine).
Typical sintered share of a buildpacking_density_pct
Volume of part in a typical full build.
Price: Sets the unsintered powder that must be refreshed.
Typical: 8–12 %.
Inert gas (0 = none)gas_l_per_h
Inert gas consumed per hour of build. 0 if this machine uses none.
Price: A consumable charged by build share, like everything else about the build.
Typical: 0 for MJF; 5–20 L/h for a nitrogen-purged machine.
MJF fusing agent per cm³ (0 for SLS)fusing_agent_ml_per_cm3
MJF fusing agent used per cubic centimetre of part. 0 on an SLS machine.
Price: Follows part volume, so it is the agent cost of a solid part.
Typical: 0 for SLS; 0.1–0.3 ml/cm³ for MJF.
MJF detailing agent per cm² (0 for SLS)detailing_agent_ml_per_cm2
MJF detailing agent used per square centimetre of surface. 0 on an SLS machine.
Price: Follows surface area, not volume - which is why a part that is all surface costs differently from one that is all mass.
Typical: 0 for SLS; 0.01–0.05 ml/cm² for MJF.
MJF printhead life (0 = untracked)printhead_life_builds
How many builds an MJF printhead lasts. 0 means you do not track it.
Price: Spreads the cost of a printhead across the builds that wore it out, rather than hiding it in overhead.
Typical: 0, or 30–80 builds.