3D printing virginia beach

3D Printing :: VBgov.com - City of Virginia Beach

Virginia Beach Public Library currently has MakerBot METHOD 3D printers for public use at the following library branches:

Bayside Area Library (1)
Kempsville Area Library (1)
Meyera E. Oberndorf Central Library (2)
TCC/City Joint-Use Library (2)

Please see the 3D Printing Guidelines and our Library Technology Policy for more information on acceptable use.

FAQs

What is 3D Printing?

MakerBot 3D printers are an example of Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM). Fused Deposition Modeling makes physical objects from three-dimensional digital models by melting and laying down many successive layers of a material. For more information, check out 3dhubs.com's online guide to 3D printing and knowledge base full of information and tips on 3D printing.

Why would I use a 3D printer?

3D printing is very useful for testing out inventions, whether it's a part, toy, vase, or anything else you may design. This is sometimes referred to as rapid prototyping. Others just have fun printing things found on the Internet (see below for more information). Trial and error is often a strategy used with 3D printing. The quality can be very good depending on the design and selected print settings. However, be prepared to apply finishing touches after a print job is complete. The water-soluble PVA support filament will need to be dissolved. Sandpaper, pliers, tweezers, and nail files can also help to remove support materials and to smooth the surface of the object.

What material is used?

All printing is done with PLA (Polylactic Acid), a bioplastic made of corn. It is a great material for printing a wide range of things. However, it has its limitations. It is fairly strong, but it will shatter if enough force is applied. Therefore, it is not suitable for making weight-bearing parts or parts that need to withstand a great amount of pressure or impact. METHOD printers also have a second extruder for support filament. PVA (PolyVinyl Alcohol) is a synthetic polymer filament formed by polymerizing vinyl acetate, which is then hydrolyzed to create PVA filament for 3D printing. PVA is soluble in water, making it a great choice for a support material. The PVA will slowly dissolve in any water, but you can speed up the process by putting it in warm water, using an agitator/stirring, or letting it soak for a while then picking the support filament off with pliers. (Note: MakerBot does not recommend water temperatures above 35° C [95° F] due to higher possibly of warping model.) For more information, including a video, see this link from MakerBot. Because one extruder is specifically for dissolvable support material, these printers only print one color at a time. Colors and amounts of available filament are not guaranteed.

How much does it cost?

3D printing is currently free at Virginia Beach Public Library.

Do I need a VBPL library account?

Yes, you must have a full-service library account in good standing to reserve and use the 3D printer. Customers with Internet Only library accounts are not eligible for 3D printer use.

Do I need training before I can use the printer?

Yes, a one-hour orientation is required. Any person with a verified VBPL library account in good standing, excluding Internet Only library accounts, is eligible to request an orientation. Customers 12 and under must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

How do I sign up for an orientation?

Email [email protected] or call to request an orientation. We will take your information and general availability and will contact you within 2-5 business days to confirm your orientation date and time.

How do I request time on the equipment?

After you have attended an orientation, you may reserve the 3D printers through Library Market at http://vbpl.librarymarket.com .

Where can I find objects to print?

Thingiverse.com has huge collections of things to print. This is a great place to explore what other people have created or to get inspiration for inventing your own objects. Most designs on this website are Creative Commons licensed and are free to download and print. Alternatively, Autodesk's Tinkercad.com is a basic, free web-based computer-aided design (CAD) platform for creating your own designs for 3D printers. SOLIDWORKS' Onshape.com is a more advanced web-based CAD platform.

Is there a limit to how long I can print?

We only schedule during the Library's open hours. Print jobs need to be complete 30 minutes prior to closing. No overnight printing is permitted. You do not need to stay for the duration of your print job, but you are expected to stay with the printer while it builds the raft. You are also expected to return the same day to remove your object from the printer once complete. If your object will take more time than we can accommodate, you may want to consider using Shapeways or Sculpteo, two fee-based online 3D printing services. Although not required, you may want to consider creating an account with MakerBot CloudPrint to preview your object at home and get an estimate of how much time your print will take prior to making a reservation.

Terms of Use

Please print things that are appropriate for the Library environment and are either your own invention or are clearly marked for sharing with a Creative Commons license. Virginia Beach Public Library reserves the right to refuse the printing of any content at any time at the discretion of Library staff. Additionally, you may also see the 3D Printing Guidelines and our Library Technology Policy for more information.

3D Printing Service for Virginia Beach, Virginia

CapabilitiesCustom Online 3D Printing ServiceVirginiaVirginia Beach

High Quality Virginia Beach, Virginia 3D Printing | 60+ Materials Available

Endless Options

Choose from millions of possible combinations of materials, finishes, tolerances, markings, and certifications for your order.

Easy to Use

Get your parts delivered right to your door without the hassle of sourcing, project management, logistics, or shipping.

Quality Assurance

Our number one job at Xometry is making your custom parts to your specifications.

Your Virginia Beach, Virginia 3D Printing Service: 3D Prototypes and Production Parts

A Global Leader in Industrial-Grade 3D Printing

Xometry is an industry-leading 3D printing service. Whether you need prototypes or production parts, we can make them for you in as fast as a day. We are your one-stop-shop for accurate, precise custom 3D printed parts at a low cost. Upload your 3D CAD file to get a quote and lead time within seconds. We use the latest additive manufacturing processes to build affordable functional prototypes & end-use parts in over 60 metals and plastics.

We offer eight high-quality 3D printing processes including selective laser sintering, fused deposition modeling, stereolithography, direct metal laser sintering, polyjet, Carbon DLS, binder jet metal, and HP Multi Jet Fusion. We use commercial and industrial-grade printers such as Stratasys Fortus 900mc and Fortus 450 FDM, EOS Polymer Laser Sintering (SLS) and DMLS, Concept Laser, SLM Solutions, 3D Systems, ExOne, and more.

Xometry's High Quality 3D Printing Services

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) is a powerful 3D printing technology that produces highly accurate and durable parts that are capable of being used directly in end-use, low-volume production, or for rapid prototyping.

An additive manufacturing layer technology, SLS involves the use of a high power laser (for example, a carbon dioxide laser) to fuse small particles of plastic powders into a mass that has a desired three-dimensional shape. The laser selectively fuses powdered material by scanning cross-sections generated from a 3-D digital description of the part (for example from a CAD file or scan data) on the surface of a powder bed. After each cross-section is scanned, the powder bed is lowered by one layer thickness, a new layer of material is applied on top, and the process is repeated until the part is completed.

Download the SLS Design Guide.

Stereolithography (SLA)

Stereolithography (SLA) is a robust 3D printing technology that produces extremely accurate and high-resolution parts that are capable of being used directly in end-use, low-volume production, or for rapid prototyping.

SLA is an additive manufacturing process that focuses an ultraviolet (UV) light on a vat of photopolymer resin. It offers higher resolution printing than many other 3D printing technologies, allowing customers to print parts with fine details and surface finishes. SLA 3D printing is a highly-versatile platform for making custom parts in prototype and production settings; often acting as a stand-in for injection-molded plastic parts.

Xometry offers both standard and high-resolution options for fine detail parts, and can also print larger sized parts and products, with some materials offering up to a 58" inch build area. In addition, Xometry's manufacturing partner network allows us to offer a larger variety of materials than other 3D printing companies - we offer a wide range of both Accura and Somos brand materials.

Download the SLA Design Guide.

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is a 3D printing technology widely known for its speed, accuracy, and competitive cost. A machine precisely extrudes melted plastic filament to create a part. Parts are very rigid, especially compared to Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), which makes them a great fit for projects with a rigidity requirement. Xometry's FDM solution offers large build volumes up to 24″ x 36″ x 36″, a variety of colors, and a diverse selection of production-grade thermoplastics — from ABS to Polycarbonate to Ultem.

Download the FDM Design Guide.

HP Multi Jet Fusion (HP MJF)

HP Multi Jet Fusion is a new 3D printing technology that produces highly accurate and durable parts that are capable of being used directly in end-use, low-volume production, or for rapid prototyping. Since the process uses well-established 2D printing ink-jetting, it has remarkably fast layer times compared to other powder bed fusion technologies.

Download the HP Multi Jet Fusion Design Guide.

PolyJet 3D (PJ3D)

PolyJet 3D is a 3D printing technology known for its customizable material properties and excellent surface finish. It works by jetting UV curable resin onto a build tray in a process that is somewhat similar to inkjet printing. PolyJet 3D printing offers one of the most advanced industrial 3D printing solutions available, producing parts with incredible precision and speed. It also supports a wide variety of build materials including rigid and rubber-like plastics. Xometry's PolyJet solution has a maximum build envelope of 19.3 × 15.4 × 7.9 in. (490 × 390 × 200 mm) in a variety of colors and materials.

Download the PolyJet 3D Design Guide.

Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS)

Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) is an 3D metal printing technology that builds prototype and production metal parts from a CAD file using a laser to selectively fuse a fine metal powder in either stainless steel or aluminum materials. A DMLS machine is capable of producing highly complex features and all-in-one assemblies using metal materials that would be difficult to achieve with subtractive manufacturing techniques.

Our DMLS metal 3D printing service typically offers build volumes up to 250 x 250 x 325 mm, but we may be able to accommodate larger part volumes upon request in the quote. (See our Manufacturing Standards for more details) A good first step is to find out the cost of the parts you need using DMLS and compare them to other 3D printing processes and CNC machining.

Download the DMLS Design Guide.

Carbon DLS™

Carbon DLS™ uses digital light projection, oxygen-permeable optics, and programmable liquid resins to produce products with end-use durability, resolution and surface finish. This 3D printing technology is called Digital Light Synthesis™, or DLS for short. Another legacy term for the process is Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP). Along with Carbon’s custom liquid resins, DLS unlocks new business opportunities and product designs previously impossible, including mass customization and on-demand inventory of end-use products.

Carbon bridges, and sometimes substitutes, for processes like Urethane Casting and Injection Molding service production, because the materials are urethane-based or epoxy-based, giving excellent mechanical properties. There are even elastomer and silicone resins that outperform most additive manufactured rubber-like materials.

The typical build area is 7.4” x 4.6” x 12.8”. Parts with dimensions exceeding 4” x 4” x 6” will require manual review.

Download the Carbon DLS Design Guide.

Metal Binder Jetting

With binder jetting, an inkjet print head quickly deposits a bonding agent onto a thin layer of powdered particles -- either metal, sand, ceramics or composites. This process is repeated, layer-by-layer, using a map from a digital design file, until the object is complete. Binder jetting is offered through our Digital RFQ Marketplace through Xometry's partnership with ExOne.

Download the Binder Jetting Design Guide.

Locations near Virginia Beach, Virginia

Chesapeake
VirginiaNorfolk
VirginiaNewport News
VirginiaRichmond
VirginiaAlexandria
VirginiaAnnapolis
MarylandArlington
VirginiaCollege Park
MarylandSilver Spring
MarylandBethesda
MarylandCharlottesville
VirginiaRaleigh
North CarolinaBaltimore
MarylandDurham
North CarolinaWilmington
DelawareHagerstown
MarylandPhiladelphia
PennsylvaniaGreensboro
North CarolinaRoanoke
VirginiaLancaster
Pennsylvania

Ready to start making custom 3D printed parts?

How Relativity Space prints rockets on a 3D printer

Relativity Space co-founder, CEO Tim Ellis / Relativity Space / AFP

Relativity Space is printing a metal space rocket on a 3D printer that it invented specifically for this purpose. Almost all: 95% is printed, and the remaining 5% falls on electronics, seals and some other elements. 3D printing has many advantages. She's cheaper. She's faster. It is made on the spot, no need to wait until the parts are brought from another factory. It is stronger: fewer places for fastening parts. “The Shuttle had 2.5 million parts,” says Relativity Space co-founder Tim Ellis. “According to our estimates, SpaceX and Blue Origin have reduced this number to 100,000 per rocket. We have a thousand - less than in your car.

Many space companies use 3D printing, but only for individual components. Skeptics insist that no one knows how the printed rocket will behave during takeoff and in space. So far, the startup's first rocket, Terran 1, has successfully passed all ground tests. The first copy for a real flight is collected slowly and carefully checked. Now it is ready for 85%. A test flight is scheduled for the end of this year. But investors believe in the idea. Last November, Relativity Space completed a series funding round and raised $500 million. After that, according to research company Pitchbook, with a business valuation of $2.3 billion, Relativity Space became the second most valuable venture capital-funded space company in the world. In 1st place, of course, SpaceX (however, Pitchbook does not include Blue Origin in the rating, which is fully funded by Jeff Bezos).

Relativity Space has since raised another round, raising $650 million, based on a company-wide valuation of $4.2 billion. reusable. After all, competitors do not sleep. Relativity Space is just one of more than a dozen rocket companies created in the last 10 years.

Launch from Mojave

Ellis was born in 1990 in Texas. He is the eldest of three children of an architect father and a dentist mother. As a child, Ellis was fond of Lego and persuaded his parents to buy about 200 sets. He immediately threw away the instructions from them and collected the spaceships he invented himself. Until now, the thumb of his right hand, when at rest, arched back more than his left - Ellis assured the Los Angeles Times that this was the result of long hours when he assembled and disassembled the parts of the designer.

As Ellis got older, he began making amateur films with his friends, mostly action movies, where the characters were often confronted by zombies. He entered the University of Southern California to become a screenwriter. But already in his first year, he became interested in the profession of an aerospace engineer and joined the Rocket Propulsion Lab at the university, which was engaged in the development of rockets.

The University of Southern California is known for its space program. Its alumni include Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong, astronaut and former head of NASA Charles Bolden, and Dana Rohrabaker, chairman of the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee. There are several laboratories where students create real rockets and satellites. “I was amazed,” Ellis recalled in an interview with the university website about the first time he went to test the rocket engine he designed and built with his comrades in the Mojave Desert. – I always advise students: take part in practical classes. So you will understand why you need to study this or that differential equation, scheme or line of code.

They wanted to be the first student group to launch a rocket into space. But, having carried out dozens of successful launches, they did not even achieve a suborbital flight - this was done by their successors in 2019, having developed more powerful engines.

Why leave Bezos and Musk

At Rocket Propulsion Lab, Ellis met and became friends with classmate Jordan Noon. Then their paths diverged for a while. Noon went to SpaceX, where he worked, among other things, on the Dragon 2 spacecraft. His emergency rescue system uses a 3D printed SuperDraco engine.

Ellis interned for three summers at Bezos' Blue Origin, and after graduation he was accepted full-time. He convinced Bezos to create a metal 3D printing division (by then many competitors, including Boeing, were doing it). He also created it from scratch. The traditional way of producing parts is turning on a lathe, stamping or casting with a mold. In 3D printing, robotic arms deposit layer upon layer of molten metal. A printed rocket has fewer parts, and therefore, places to connect them using welding, rivets, etc., and therefore fewer vulnerabilities. Skeptics object that if defects are found, the entire part has to be discarded and its manufacture must be started anew. But Ellis says that Relativity Space has developed a way to restart the printing process from the right place. “3D printed rockets are the future of rocketry and space exploration,” he told Inc. magazine.

Ellis and Noon often called each other and talked about rockets, although they worked for different space companies. They put together a rough cost structure to understand why rockets are so expensive. “80 to 90% goes to wages,” Noon told Bloomberg. 3D printing can dramatically reduce these costs.

Ellis once mentioned that he was going to start a startup to 3D print entire rockets. He later admitted to Inc. that he tried to get Bezos to print more parts for the rocket, but his suggestions were never fully implemented. Then he decided to take up rocket science himself. Noon liked the idea. Both left in December 2015 to create startup Relativity Space.

“I never saw him give up, give up, or fail to solve a problem, even a really difficult one,” Ellis told the Los Angeles Times of Noon. “I knew our startup was going to have a lot of problems, and he was the right person to make it all work.” And Noon noted: “I am strong in technical and practical aspects, and Ellis is strong in creative thinking and non-standard solutions.”

For 1 kg of satellite

Relativity Space received its first money from venture investor Mark Cuban. Ellis and Noon made about 20 attempts to guess Cuban's email address, as Cuban preferred texting to other forms of communication. Some of the letters were returned with a note that such an address does not exist, some got to other people. But one of the addresses turned out to be correct, and Cuban read the letter with the headline "Space Is Sexy: 3D Printing of an Entire Rocket. " Ellis and Noon asked for $100,000. Cuban, after five minutes of texting them, agreed to invest $500,000 (although they had to wait two months to check if they were fraudsters). “They are smart, resourceful, driven and always learning,” Cuban wrote in an email to The Times. “These are exactly the traits I look for in innovators.”

First, the startup needed to create a huge 3D printer - there were no models on the market suitable for their purposes. A lot of effort was put into this. But now the latest generation printer is able to print a part up to 32 feet (almost 10 m) high, while the height of the Terran 1 rocket is 115 feet (35 m). Ellis and Noon say that even if the rocket venture fails, they can always cash in on the sale of industrial 3D printers.

Terran 1 /Relativity Space

Created with Cuban's money, the first printer could print parts half the size of the last generation. But the working rocket engine printed on it made an impression on investors. First, they invested almost $10 million in the startup, then another $35 million, and in October 2019d. - another $ 140 million. Ellis and Noon planned to stop there. They did not want to dilute their share, and the funds raised should have been enough for the time before the first commercial launch, if they worked without haste. But in November 2020, another $500 million round of funding was raised. As Ellis explained to CNBC, “the development and scaling of the project needs to be accelerated.” That summer, the startup moved to a new 11,000-square-meter headquarters in Long Beach, California. m, where there will be a site for the production of rockets (the most important thing is that their new printer climbed there in height). Over the past year and a half, the company has more than doubled the number of employees. She now has 400+ people and plans to hire 200 more this year.

Ellis told Inc. that they already have $1 billion in launch contracts from government and commercial entities. Terran 1 can carry up to 1250 kg of payload. This is smaller than SpaceX's Falcon 9, but larger than Rocket Lab's Electron. Relativity Space is targeting a mid-sized satellite niche, much like a car, Ellis said. Its competitors are the Russian Soyuz-2-1V and the European Vega. Or the same Electron, if Terran 1 displays several small satellites at once.

The launch cost of Terran 1 is $12 million, i.e. slightly less than $10,000 per 1 kg. Last year, Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin announced a more than 30% reduction in the price of launch services for a number of satellites to the level of SpaceX: to $15,000–17,000 per 1 kg instead of $20,000–30,000.

Target Mars

The competitive advantage of Relativity Space is not only in cost, but also in the fact that it can print a rocket to customer requirements, changing both the diameter of the rocket and the shape of the fairing for the satellite - of course, within the limits allowed by aerodynamics, Forbes explained. And she can do it quickly. Once the technology has been proven in practice, Relativity Space is going to print the rocket in 30 days and take another 30 days for pre-launch tests, Ellis told Scientific American. According to him, even SpaceX takes 12 to 18 months to build a conventional rocket. But Musk claims that his reusable rocket is ready for a new flight 51 days after the previous launch.

So in June, Relativity Space raised another $650 million from investors to accelerate the development of its own reusable Terran R rocket (of course, also almost completely printed on a printer). Its first launch is scheduled for 2024. It will be larger than the first one - 216 feet (66 m) high and designed for 20 tons of payload.

For Ellis and Noon, the main thing is that this project is another step towards interplanetary flights. Musk is looking for a way to get colonists to Mars, and Ellis and Noon are hoping to help them settle on the Red Planet. "If you believe - and I believe - that Elon [Musk] and NASA will send people to Mars, then <...> they will need a whole bunch of things," Ellis told CNBC. “Our printers are reducing the amount of infrastructure that would need to be transported from Earth to Mars in order to establish a colony there,” explained Noon Inc. – Traditionally, you need to send tons of equipment for a factory that will be able to produce factories that, in turn, will produce cars, houses, warehouses ... In our vision of the future, you simply send a 3D printer to Mars that prints everything using Martian raw materials this is". In a speech to the students of his alma mater, Ellis added: “We are going to 3D print the first rocket made in Mars <...> I don’t see a future in 50 years in which rockets will not be 3D printed. It just doesn't make sense otherwise, because printing is much easier and cheaper."

Blender 3D for 3D printers

Correct position! But some problems can still be covered by polygonal modeling.

Gathered here the answers to the four most common and non-obvious problems.

Dimensions

When I first tried to order 3D printing from a company about seven years ago, it was like this:
— Igor! You sent an empty file!
- No! Here's a screenshot, well!

One meter in Blender is equal to one millimeter in Slicer, nothing has changed in these seven years.

Designing in meters is wonderfully inconvenient, so when exporting to STL/OBJ, set the Scale value to 1000:

Closed geometry The ability to create open geometry is both a scourge and a bonus of polygonal modeling.

In the modern world, slicers (not all) have learned to work with this, but there may be surprises: want a hole? get a blank wall!

If you don't like surprises, you should use Blender's geometry analyzer.
In the mesh edit mode, select the vertex selection, and click Select → Select All By Trail → Non Manifold

To eliminate such trash as on the right ball, there is a Merge By Distance tool. Lives in Mesh → Clean Up → Merge By Distance.

In other cases, it is necessary either to give the wall thickness by extruding, or to close up the hole, or is this geometry really necessary?

And now for the good news: in Blender 2.8 the 3D printing addon is built right into Blender, hooray! Geometry analysis just got easier. You just need to turn it on, and in the edit mode in the N-panel everything will be (and even the preliminary volume of the model!).

Flying geometry

As unclosed, only flying. So the slicer can still try to shove it into the G-code!

The annoyance is that if the volume of the walls was made by a modifier, these mesh pieces can no longer be found with the Non Manifold tool.

Select any polygon on the target mesh, and use the Ctrl+L hotkey: it will add all physically connected polygons to the selection. After that, invert the selection with the Ctrl+I hotkey and delete everything you don't need.

Normals

Roughly speaking, the polygon has a "face". When the polygon enters the slicer, the slicer looks at where the polygon has a “face”, tries to fill the wrong side with plastic, and at the same time checks for overhangs.
Accordingly, a cube with normals inside will be perceived clumsily.