Responding to this post because I've just finished doing this exact project with my Printer. Using my Lulzbot Mini (which I personally own), I made Eight candlestick phones for Crazy for You.
Not including initial cost of the printer ($1200), and my personal time to design and print, the cost in Materials was a little over $80. Specifically 3x 1Kg spools of PLA
filament, plus some scraps I had laying around. At the time of production, our
Props Master was unable to find enough phones for cheaper than $25 each, so comparatively 3D printing was half the cost.
Everything was printed between .18mm and .25mm Layer Height at 1.5mm thick depending on the piece.
Total time for the Project was about 20 Days from start to finish. This is including 3 Days of downtime for maintenance on the printer, design changes, unexpected
power outages (Printer and PC were not on a
UPS) and waiting for additional
filament to arrive. I also did not do any prints at night since our apartment is small and the sound kept my Wife up at night ( I also did not feel comfortable moving the Printer to the theater Mid-project).
Time was the biggest cost obviously, but there are a lot of ways I learned to cut that down.
-Design parts to use as little
filament as possible (also saves on cost)
-Avoid using infill as much as possible
-Print at night ( I was unable to do this for this project, but I have done it before. I essentially lost 100+ hours in print time because I did not run the printer overnight.)
-Print at lower layer heights (I could have gone as high as .28mm for every part, effectively cutting print time down by 1/3, but wanted something that would look nice closer up as well)
-There is now an upgrade available for my printer which promises to cut print time between 1/3 to 1/2.
We decided to do this project partly as a proof of concept, as we were curious what we could realistically accomplish with a 3D printer.
Takeaways
+ You can make the exact prop your looking for, with smart design and planning you can even produce objects larger than the printer
build area. (final phones were about 1/2 taller than the printers
build height)
+ Cheap (each phone was about $8 a pop)
+ Can print complex objects that would be difficult for other machining tools.
+ Can quickly implement design changes.
+ Time efficient on man hours (I would spend about 10 Minutes each morning setting up the days prints, then head to work, Prints would often finish within an hour of me getting home.)
- Initial investment is expensive upfront.
- Mass production of parts takes a long time (Had we someone on our staff skilled in mold making, I would have simply made a single Phone, then cast the other 7)
- Learning Curve (As with any new machine, it takes time to properly learn how to use it.)
- Cheaper/Faster methods, depending on the prop. (Just because you CAN print it, doesn't mean it makes sense to)