(Chair of the Makerspace Committee that set the space up here)

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Simply put, that is the machine amortization cost ($0.024 per KG printed) and the material cost ($0.0233 per kg from lulzbot directly. We have a consumables budget of ~$7000/year, and that is consumed entirely in having to eat the cost of failed prints and the addition of as-yet-unrequested tools.

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Machine amortization is required to be calculated into consumables because it is a federal regulation. Since grants can be used for this service, we are required to calculate all of the institutional direct costs associated with the apportioned usage.

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The funds collected go back into the spaces operating budget which gives the makerspace the ability to be reactive to students needs, without having to go through appropriations request (a year long process) every time a machine breaks or we need to increase the capabilities of the space with new machines. If we just charged material cost, the consumable that is the machine itself would be lost and we would slowly have fewer and fewer printers for students, eventually none.

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As for why we do not let any random filament in, well a bad filament causes failed prints, and failed prints can damage the machines. The $20 amazon special is garbage plastic, can contain non-label contaminants, and is often of an uneven diameter through a spool.

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I hope that helps make sense of the costing infrastructure used to not just set up, but also make sustainable, a printing, laser cutting and PCB fabrication queue.

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