Makerspace

Central's Makerspace will offer limited services starting Aug 9. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, access inside the equipment area is temporarily staff-only.

BPL’s renovated makerspace is bigger, brighter, better—and almost ready to welcome back Burlington makers! Now located on Central's spacious 3rd floor, the makerspace is a community creativity studio where you can design, innovate, fabricate, and build skills for life.

Questions? If you would like to know more about any of our equipment or services, please give us a call at 905.639.3611 or contact us online.

How It Works

Drop off your ready-to-make design file in a USB flash drive for makerspace staff to manufacture at a later date.

Mon, Fri & Sat: 10am-4.30pm
Tue to Thu: 10am-5.30pm
Projects will be manufactured as designed; library staff will not modify designs.
Production fees will be charged for incomplete or unsatisfactory manufacturing due to design issues.

3rd floor Public Computers

Our specialized maker equipment requires design files in specific formats (see Equipment below). Make sure you bring a USB stick to save your designs. Computers are available first come-first served:

3 design computers with CorelDraw, Abobe Creative Suite, Inkscape
4 regular computers with links to LinkedIn Learning, YouTube, Niche Academy, and other online learning resources
1 computer with scanner
VHS to DVD converter

Design Responsibly

Whether you are designing from scratch or using a ready-to-make pattern for your maker project, please be aware that the content must not be:

Prohibited by provincial or federal law.
Unsafe, harmful, dangerous, or threaten the well-being of others.
In violation of another's intellectual property rights; for example, the 3D printer and scanner may not be used to reproduce materials subject to copyright, patent, or trademark protection.

Equipment & Production Information

Designs must meet the production requirements outlined in the sections below.
Laser cutter materials: Customers may buy project materials at the library or supply their own from the approved list - see Related links
Vinyl cutter/printer, 3D Printer, embroidery machine materials: Must be purchased from BPL. Customers cannot supply their own vinyl, filament, thread, etc.
Materials sold at the library are only for use within BPL's makerspace.

Laser Cutter

Hardware: Epilog Mini Helix 24 - 40w CO2 laser

Drop off your design file in a USB flash drive in one of the required file formats:

For projects requiring cutting: .SVG, .PDF, .CDR (Version 17)
For engraving-only projects: .PDF, .PNG, .JPG

Project Size:

Cutting bed size: 12" x 24"
Cutting thickness: 1/4" maximum

Production Cost: $5/every 30 minutes of laser cutting time

Materials Cost:
1/8” Birch Plywood (1' x 2') = $4.00
3mm Acrylic: White, Black, Clear (1' x 2') = $10
3mm Acrylic: Yellow, Blue, Red, Green (1' x 2') = $12
Low Odour Laser Rubber (8.5" x 12") = $18

Vinyl Cutter & Vinyl Printer

Hardware: Roland BN-20 Vinyl Printer and Roland GS-24 Vinyl Cutter

Drop off your design file in a USB flash drive in one of the required file formats:

.SVG, .PDF, .CDR (Version 17)
For vinyl printing-only: .PDF .PNG or .JPG Hardware

Project Size:

Vinyl printer 18" width maximum
Vinyl cutter: 22" width maximum

Materials Cost:
Cutting Only: Black, White, Blue, Copper = $2/foot (length)
Printing & Cutting:

Standard Vinyl (Clear, Matte or Glossy) = $2/foot (length)
Premium Vinyl (Heat Transfer) = $2/foot (length)

3D Printing

Hardware: MakerBot Replicator Z18

Drop off your design file in a USB flash drive in one of the required file formats: .STL, .OBJ

Project Size:

1.8" length x 12" wide maximum
Must be able to print in 7 hour maximum

Production Cost: $2.50 per 30 minutes of print time
Materials: We cannot accommodate requests for specific filament colours.

Embroidery Machine

Hardware: Janome Memory Craft 500E
Software: Janome Digitizer V5

Drop off your design file in a USB flash drive in one of the required file formats: .EMB or .JEF

Embroidery Size: 7.9” x 11” maximum
Production Cost: $4 for the first 10,000 stitches + $2/every 5,000 stitches (or part thereof) after.
Fabric: Acceptable fabric for embroidery machine projects - see Related links