We have a large printer that is available for requests from Makerspace Members. This printer can print and cut:
posters
banners
photos
stickers
stencils
The large printer is not for commercial purposes.
All items should be for personal use and not for resale.
Members may request a print once per month. Your design must be previewed by a Makerspace Specialist. It may take up to 2 weeks to fulfill a print request after your design has been approved for printing.
For more information about the large printer, design, or our policies, email your questions to maker@mfplibrary.org.
If you wish to print an item with the large printer, then you must bring your final design to a Makerspace Specialist for preview. One-on-one consultation is required before the process can continue. This design will be checked for:
size
format
material consumption
ink consumption
cost (see below)
restricted elements (see below)
Your design will be accepted if it passes preview. Suggestions will be provided to help your design pass preview if it does not pass. Once a cost is assessed for the print, then you are expected to pay for it prior to executing the print.
Your print will be added to a queue and printed at a later time. It may take up to 2 weeks to fulfill your request.
The large printer uses an uncommonly large media and specialty solvent ink packets. We ask that you reimburse us for the cost of materials and ink that you use. If you find that there is a mistake in your design after printing, then you are expected to pay for each attempt.
The maximum printable width is 52 inches. You are charged for the linear length of material used during the print as measured after sheet cutting. This includes pre-feed and clearance margins, which add about 6 inches of length. All measures will be rounded up to the next foot.
We have some 54-inch wide materials available that you can use at cost:
Banner, $0.80 per linear foot -- matte, durable for outdoor use
Cardstock paper, $1.25 per linear foot -- matte, temporary/non-tamper use
Adhesive vinyl, $1.50 per linear foot -- glossy, semi-permanent adhesive, useful for wallpaper and decals
Canvas, $2.15 per linear foot -- textured, useful for art display
Photobase paper -- $3 per linear foot -- glossy, intended for photo display
If you bring in your own material, you will not be charged for using it. At least one linear foot of your material may be needed for quality control in addition to the desired print, so please ensure you bring the appropriate amount needed.
The cost of the ink will be determined by the estimate provided by Roland VersaWorks Dual, which is the software that we use to prepare designs for prints. The amount of ink required varies by several factors that include color content, printed area, and material, but it costs $0.25 per cubic centimeter.
This form is a ballpark estimate of the cost of your print based on your input. It does not provide the exact cost of your print. The actual cost of your print is determined by software analysis of the image or document that you provide.
Width: How wide would you like this print to be? We are limited to a maximum width of 53 inches. (Yes, we can rotate prints.)
Length: How long would you like this print to be? If you intend to print something that is longer than 8 feet, please contact us.
Ink Coverage: This is the hardest to estimate manually without prior knowledge of CMYK printing. A poster that is sparsely covered with text may only need 1 cc of ink. A full-color poster may use 25 cc.
Material: At the moment, we have four types of material, so select the one that you want for your print.
We don't allow you to use the large printer directly, but you can streamline the process if your design is ready to pass preview before you bring it in. Learn more about what we are looking for in your design by reading through the Poster Prints project page and our Large Printer training page.
A few designs are banned:
Unlicensed designs -- These may be protected by copyright, trademark, and/or patents.
Hateful and/or derogatory and/or blatantly obscene themes -- These are against library policy.
Our general policies apply to this activity.
We are not a print service.
We do not support printing several identical designs at once.
Contour cuts or boundary cuts may result in a skew or other imprecision.
Patrons may be banned from large printer requests for refusal to pay for a print.
Staff members are not responsible for your design.
Staff members are not responsible for any errors due to your design.
Staff members are not responsible for the quality of the reproduction of your design.