Inkjet printing requires orders of magnitude more engineering expertise, materials science, industry experience and financial resources than most people imagine. That is the reason, open inkjet printers don't exist despite having been consumer products with the same drawbacks for more than forty years.
That is why this is a pre-crowdfund landing page without a demonstrating a working prototype. I would like to be wrong, but I expect you to be waiting a long time.
An inkjet printer is not a collection of off the shelf parts. It is a machine that operates at the edge of chemistry, fluid dynamics, and electro-mechanical design...you have to place tiny tiny drops of liquid ink on commodity wood pulp with precision under arbitrary environmental conditions, get that ink to dry on the wood pulp, but not in tank or nozzel, while producing acceptable color, durability, and ease of use.
Also lawyers...there are patents.
tjohns 20 hours ago [-]
On the technology side, I'm somewhat hopeful because it looks like they're using off-the-shelf HP ink cartridges for this. HP cartridges embed the printhead into the cartridge itself, and that printhead is arguably the most complicated part of the entire device. Outsource the printhead, and you're just designing a plotter with a PCL interface.
I agree that the bigger challenge is going to be patents.
It also wouldn't surprise me to see HP add DRM to cartridges to authenticate the printer itself if this catches on. (Possibly requiring a printer driver/firmware update.)
londons_explore 9 hours ago [-]
The cartridge heads have a super curious digital protocol - the cartridge electronics have no power supply. There is no power rail internally either.
Instead they use the fact mosfet gates have capacitance, and can therefore store 1 'bit' of information. Through a network of hundreds of MOSFETs, the right bits can be put on all the nozzle gates as needed, and then a 'fire' pulse is sent which for around a microsecond turns on a tiny heater (or not, depending on mosfet gate state). The heater boils some ink, making a pressure wave which travels down a pipe and makes a drop of ink fly out towards the paper. That heating and cooling again can happen around 10,000 times per second per nozzle (and there are ~300 nozzles).
I suspect this decision is because the custom silicon process needed to manufacture these nozzles is cheaper if they only have n type MOSFETs - and without p type MOSFETs you can't make a typical push pull logic gate.
The nozzles themselves are quite a lot of silicon - perhaps 100mm^2, with deep etched holes, and are effectively disposable, so I assume huge efforts have been taken to reduce costs - including this curious electrical design.
The protocol also is hugely irregular, which I suspect might be to avoid any wires on the chip needing to cross eachother.
bri3d 15 hours ago [-]
Impression v. Lexmark is directly relevant to the patent situation here; in a case involving reprogrammed ink cartridges, the Supreme Court held that patent rights are exhausted by first sale doctrine; that is, if you sell me something patented, you can't sue me for patent infringement for using the thing you sold me, even if I do something later that makes you upset.
It's also been widely held that ink cartridge compatibility tools/hacks are allowed under DMCA.
However, it does seem likely that there's probably some shenanigan involved in the area - one example I could think of would be if HP have patented the way the ink cartridges are retained in the printer, for example, that would have to be carefully audited. And there will be license and trade secrets issues with the use of the cartridges, although if they were reverse engineered cleanly and the printer doesn't come with cartridges, those are probably pretty easily side-stepped.
londons_explore 9 hours ago [-]
These cartridges were first released in 2004, and there don't seem to have been any major design changes since then. The electrical and digital interface for printing has remained the same, as well as the mechanics. There is a new DRM system using another chip, but that is one-way - ie. It prevents an original printer from using the cartridge, but doesn't prevent use of an original cartridge by a third party printer.
Any patents are probably expired or very close to it.
4gotunameagain 11 hours ago [-]
A sea of patents designed to inhibit competition & promote rent extraction, and we are running around in circles chasing our tails wondering how we can compete with China.
londons_explore 9 hours ago [-]
China is changing stance on patents... Thier companies are now filing for patents at great speed, and I wouldn't be surprised if they start mass suing American companies for violations.
I could totally imagine a rapid upheaval of the patent system as soon as we see it being used against us.
hn_throwaway_99 18 hours ago [-]
> I agree that the bigger challenge is going to be patents.
Surely most/all of the patents around the actual inkjet printing function have expired though, right? I had inkjet printers in the mid 00s and if anything I feel like your average inkjet is worse these days.
Arainach 11 hours ago [-]
In medicine, it's a regular trick to find some new patentable formulation or tweak to switch to manufacturing shortly before the original patents expire, so that you continue to have a patent-protected product.
It would not surprise me if something similar was happening here: HP's current cartridges have at least one piece that is under active patent protection and they don't manufacture any designs that have no patent protection. I don't know enough to state that's the case, but it wouldn't surprise me.
alnwlsn 3 hours ago [-]
Mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but the print heads are a very specialized silicon chip with internal microfluidic passages, microscopic heaters, etc. Who else would even make them? The kind of thing you would need millions of dollars to reverse engineer and replicate just to enter the lucrative market of... making inkjet cartridges.
I would be shocked to discover that there are counterfeit print heads out there the same way there are counterfeit STM32 microcontrollers.
Unless the patents have something to do with the shape of the cartridge or they somehow have a patent on "technique to fill printer cartridge with ink" which would not be so surprising.
saturn8601 19 hours ago [-]
Maybe they should have purchased a design from Canon or someone that isn't really in this market anymore. It seems like not only are they locked into a specific older technology generation (which could be ok idk) but they also risk HP just discontinuing that cartridge. It seems like the printers for this cartridge were released around late 2017 so they could deprecate earlier than they normally do. Seems like they provide 10-20 years typically. At the same time , maybe this is just meant for a small user base of nerds and maybe HP wont care.
ssl-3 3 minutes ago [-]
I did some research on weird inkjet printers a few years ago. We wanted to do stuff like print white[1] graphics continuously onto rolls of black heat shrink tubing.
One thing I discovered was that there's whole Chinese industries supplying this stuff in the forms of industrial printers and the application-cartridges they consume. And they all had one thing in common: They were based around the functionality of an HP printer cartridge. That was the universal interface.
This leads me to believe that a print cartridge format can be supported by the marketplace for a very long time whether HP likes it or not.
[1]: Printing with white is neat. It sounds impossible and there are those who say it can't happen, but it exists. It's just problematic. The head gets perma-clogged with solids within minutes of disuse. So starting a print job is a race: Get everything set up, uncap the cartridge at the last moment, and then put that cap back on ASAP when the job is over.
throwup238 10 hours ago [-]
Canon is still in the market, they just supply parts and license IP to the printer manufacturers like HP. They make some high value stuff to sell to the OEMs but I don’t think they can make a whole print head anymore.
8 hours ago [-]
tw04 15 hours ago [-]
Why would they bother? They make all their money on the ink cartridges. If this drives more cartridge sales it’s a win/win for them. They generally don’t make much, if anything, on consumer ink jet printers themselves
robbak 5 hours ago [-]
This printer will use refilled cartridges. It could even use cartridges that have been sent out under the 'instant ink' subscription scheme. People in that scheme usually end up with a drawer full of spare cartridges, as they send them to you like they are worth the pennies that they actually cost.
tw04 3 hours ago [-]
People willing to use refilled cartridges will use them regardless of the printer they’re going in, so again it’s no lost sale for HP.
Heck, it may actually save them money. At one point they were losing money on every printer sale and making it back in ink No idea if that’s still the case.
numpad0 10 hours ago [-]
big companies seek control, not money, because money alone is a weak shield against disruptions
brookst 11 hours ago [-]
It’s negligible revenue and carries some risk. Say the printer works well, and these enthusiasts drive a couple of thousand more cartridge sales. And that encourages someone to develop an alternative cartridge, which is mechanically and electrically compatible with HP’s.
It just seems easier to fire off a cease and desist than to take a risk of other people messing around with your ecosystem.
15155 9 hours ago [-]
> And that encourages someone to develop an alternative cartridge, which is mechanically and electrically compatible with HP
This already happens for basically every commercially-available ink cartridge.
whyoh 7 hours ago [-]
No, those are just repackaged OEM cartridges. And usually they've already been used, which is why they're cheaper.
RecycledEle 15 hours ago [-]
> Why would they bother?
Many corporate and government types, especially lawyers, want control. They will go broke trying to control everyone and everything.
m4rtink 2 hours ago [-]
Well, they can just make the printer support multiple cartridges - problem solved.
ehnto 15 hours ago [-]
The crowdsource page says it has refillable ink tanks rather than cartridges. Unless they are modifying HP cartridges, which is probably not smart from a legal standpoint.
tjohns 15 hours ago [-]
The tech specs say it uses HP 63 cartridges (or HP 302/803 outside the US), and that the cartridges can be refilled using a refill kit.
The photos clearly show HP cartridges installed.
whazor 7 hours ago [-]
In the case of DRM it might be easier to use third party cartridges.
pbronez 20 hours ago [-]
I don’t see why HP would want to do that. They have huge margins on ink, right? I’m sure the increase in cartridge sales would offset lost subscription revenue from useless cloud services, if only because the people who are gonna use an open source printer would never pay for that anyway.
ldoughty 19 hours ago [-]
Looks like the intended use case here is you buy the cartridge once, and refill it, and OpenPrinter won't lock you out after doing so like HP does.
labcomputer 17 hours ago [-]
Yea, but then the print head clogs up after the second time you refill it and you buy another expensive print head + ink from HP.
Frankly, I think 99% of the reason they started integrating the print head with the cartridge was to avoid all the problems you so frequently see on printers that don’t use disposable heads.
15 hours ago [-]
taneq 17 hours ago [-]
Yeah, if you’re buying the ink they would be happy, I’d think. The ideal razor-and-blades business model!
infl8ed 19 hours ago [-]
I noticed that previous post is from a couple of months ago, and it looks like about a week ago they posted a project update and they claim for their current prototype: "We are successfully printing in both black and full color." https://www.crowdsupply.com/open-tools/open-printer/updates/...
Of course I have no way of verifying either way. Still I do think the project looks quite interesting, I'm in the market for a printer and this is certainly the most interesting one I've seen in a while.
Compatible cartridges
HP 63 and HP 63 XL (US)
HP 302 and HP 302 XL (Europe)
HP 803 and HP 803 XL (Asia)
So they just use HP inkjet technology. That makes it less open-source, but even "open source" parts are going to be under non-commercial license (CC BY-NC-SA) anyway.
userbinator 12 hours ago [-]
I suspect it's because the protocol for driving those cartridges is known and others have used them:
Make sense. But at the same time sounds like another way to support the biggest predator in that space, no?
rbanffy 7 hours ago [-]
Remanufactured cartridges for these printers are available. They profit from the first use of the cartridge, but make nothing out of the refilled ones (I've been using them for some time now).
phoronixrly 19 hours ago [-]
> even "open source" parts are going to be under non-commercial license (CC BY-NC-SA) anyway
You're saying this as if it is a bad thing? I absolutely welcome this decision by the authors!
lima 17 hours ago [-]
Non commercial licenses are not generally considered open source
worik 17 hours ago [-]
Yes
But how important?
__float 16 hours ago [-]
If it is not an open source license, you should not call it open source.
Imagine someone saying the same thing about MongoDB's license, for example.
Sankozi 10 hours ago [-]
Is there a Linux server run on fully open source hardware (what would that mean btw?)? Should we stop using "open source" because almost all computers are not fully open source?
sehansen 8 hours ago [-]
Quite a lot of open source hardware is licensed under the BY-SA Creative Commons license which is an actual open source license. E.g. the Arduinos and things like the Milkymist One which can actually run linux.
2 hours ago [-]
hannasanarion 2 hours ago [-]
What are you even trying to say? The fact that this is hardware isn't what makes it non-open source, there's plenty of open source hardware out there. The thing that makes it not-open-source is that the license is non-commercial.
If you can't legally use the product, the fact that the source is available is meaningless. CC-NC is a source available license, not an open source license.
happymellon 13 hours ago [-]
Why? Restricting it in this way doesn't make sense to me.
If we have a common design them surely we want people to be able to build their own, or buy a prebuilt?
whilenot-dev 12 hours ago [-]
Why is the CC BY-NC-SA stopping me to build my own?
happymellon 10 hours ago [-]
I didn't say it did.
If it is a noncommercial licence then it removes the other option to set up a business selling these pre-built. Not everyone wants to build a printer.
numpad0 10 hours ago [-]
dmca?
rubidium 20 hours ago [-]
99% of this is the printhead and the ink formulation. Assuming you use generic off the shelf solutions for those two components you’re set. All the printer companies do their lock in at the firmware and software layer.
hn_throwaway_99 17 hours ago [-]
Yeah, I found that original comment to be a bit nonsensical. It would be like arguing you can't build your own PC because the lithography tech needed to make modern ICs is really complicated. I wasn't planning a laying out my own chip, and these guys aren't planning on building their own printhead from scratch.
jnaina 16 hours ago [-]
yes, I was about to build another gaming PC, and then I remembered the ASML machine costs 20 bajillion. Will wait for the ASML machine to come down in price, to around couple of grand.
bluGill 4 hours ago [-]
You don't need ASML machines. There are labs all over that can build chips. I know of one near me that has a license to make the Pentium I chip (or possibly a similar chip - the exact chips classified, but I know can make the electronics for the Tomahawk missile thus ensuring that in case of war there is supply chain redundancy) - they need to get $30,000 each for them just to break even on labor costs since they don't have mass production.
Which is to say you can make your gaming PC at home as a one-off if you want. Though personally I won't get near the toxic chemicals used.
imtringued 10 hours ago [-]
There's also the long term strategy where if they can sell enough printers, they may at some point in the future do get the budget needed to make their own print head. It's not like printers were invented in 2026.
dotancohen 11 hours ago [-]
At the 2400 DPI that an HP printer can handle, the printer needs to place the head at 1/100 mm precision three times for every single dot on the page, and not smear them, despite not knowing what thickness or weight or finish the paper has. That is not trivial.
a96 10 hours ago [-]
2400 dpi is not the bar for entry, though. Even 240 would qualify as a printer, albeit not a good one (SOTA in 1995 maybe).
dotancohen 5 hours ago [-]
I respectfully disagree. For all the use cases shown on the linked page, a 240 DPI printer would not be acceptable.
alden5 18 hours ago [-]
The fact the campaign is run on crowdsupply makes me a lot more hopeful it'll get to market vs a site like kickstarter. Crowdsupply requires a working prototype before launching and they provide all the expertise to actually get projects to market, off the top of my head I don't believe any crowdsupply project has failed to deliver.
I have enormous respect for dot matrix printers. They're easy to repair and service, the tech is relatively simple, it's cheap, it's parts are cheap, its supplies are cheap. It's way more sustainable than any other printer: both the printer itself in its manufacturing and the ribbons themselves. The waste they produce is also much less polluting than any other printer.
hn_throwaway_99 18 hours ago [-]
They also kind of suck. I'm not one for "the latest and greatest", but their output quality is atrocious compared to modern printers, they're loud AF, and I'm guessing it may have existed but I never saw a dot matrix that didn't have the perforated edge for feeding.
WhyNotHugo 17 hours ago [-]
Dot matrix can handle regular A4 paper since the late nineties.
They're noisier than ink printers, but non-industrial quality can be pretty reasonable for office-level noises.
Quality certainly isn't on par with laser printers, but for text (both Latin and CJK), it's perfectly clear.
Narishma 3 hours ago [-]
> Dot matrix can handle regular A4 paper since the late nineties.
Did you mean the late 80s'? Growing up we had a Panasonic dot matrix printer from the mid to late 80s that had no trouble with A4 paper.
a96 10 hours ago [-]
There was no reason to sell a dot matrix printer that wasn't compatible with tractor feed. Especially when some of the biggest uses of those printers required that stock. Doesn't mean they required tractor feed paper to operate.
A Matrix printer is essentially a typewriter with extra steps and typewriters had been eating any paper for .. a century before?
taneq 17 hours ago [-]
I think that’s a product of their time rather than the dot matrix tech itself. Paper feeding is hard. Tractor strips made it easier.
dragontamer 17 hours ago [-]
Dot Matrix are still used in outdoor / high humidity environments in USA.
A lot of car shops with regular 100% humidity conditions will swear by dot matrix + tractor for feeding paper + printing. Plus, the carbon copy forms are guaranteed to be exact carbon copies which also leads to legal guarantees about copies of paper being provably exactly the same in the court of law.
bitwize 17 hours ago [-]
Pen plotters could accept sheets of A4 and very precisely position them since at least the 80s. I'm surprised that dot-matrix printers didn't adopt similar technologies sooner, though it could be because by the mid-80s dot-matrix printers were the budget option, fanfold paper with the tractor strips was still abundant, and it was much easier to just stick with the cheaply manufacturable technologies rather than take the risk of innovation with a product that wouldn't sell upmarket anyway.
taneq 10 hours ago [-]
Were A4 plotters that much of a thing? I'd thought plotters were usually larger format (A0-A2 sort of size) for engineering drawings etc. Also iirc they were insanely expensive compared with your standard microcomputer dot-matrix printer.
bitwize 7 hours ago [-]
The most popular pen plotter, and sort of the "holy grail" among hobbyists for this sort of thing, is the HP-7475A, a desktop model which could accept A4 or A3 sized paper (or US A or B size). It cost $1895 upon release in 1984, so yeah, pretty expensive when compared to the $650 an Epson MX-80 (best known dot matrix printer) cost. But there was so much more to the plotter than its paper-feed technology; it was much more a precision instrument in a variety of ways.
ACCount37 10 hours ago [-]
The single hardest part is the print head. If you can reuse an existing one, and you can, then you're most of the way there.
The paper path itself is mechanically involved, but not to an impossible degree - it's hard to make it work, but it's not MEMS magic, it's manufacturable in the same way advanced 3D printers are manufacturable.
beAbU 42 minutes ago [-]
Yet it's the paper handler that constantly jams and the printhead is fine after alignment.
amelius 19 hours ago [-]
It really makes more sense to just buy a laser printer, in almost all cases.
ocdtrekkie 18 hours ago [-]
Yeah conceptually this excites me but I decided color printing wasn't worth it at home years ago and haven't regretted it.
taneq 17 hours ago [-]
A colour laser A4 multifunction is only a few hundred bucks these days, five years ago I’d have agreed with you but it might be worth re-evaluating.
happymellon 13 hours ago [-]
I've reevaluated.
Still not worth it. My Brother is hitting 10 years now, and I'm trying to think of many scenarios where I really needed to print colour at home.
cromka 12 hours ago [-]
I don't think this was a mono vs color argument but rather ink color vs laser color.
happymellon 3 hours ago [-]
Gggp post said they were just sticking with b+w laser, and gp post suggested a colour laser.
imtringued 10 hours ago [-]
If you go with a laser color printer you will have to buy four toners instead of one.
taneq 10 hours ago [-]
I have all Brother printers too, they seem to be the only brand that's not actively trying to screw their customers. My B&W laser at home is on its second drum and still soldiering on, we got an A4 colour laser multifunction for work which does double sided document scanning and printing and it was... I think $380 or something, five years ago. Would buy again. I don't really need colour but it's nice.
ocdtrekkie 12 hours ago [-]
I'd have to buy a printer tho. The one I have has done its job for a decade and I think I've bought a grand total of one offbrand toner cartridge in that time.
d3Xt3r 9 hours ago [-]
Except when you need to ocassionally print/copy in color, in which case inkjets are more economical.
Even if you can afford a color laser, the problem is a color MFP (ie including a scanner) occupies a lot more space compared to a equivalent inkjet, and for some people this could be a deal breaker.
nritchie 18 hours ago [-]
Ever look at how much energy a laser printer uses?
hn_throwaway_99 17 hours ago [-]
Extremely little? High quality inkjets may make sense for corporate or industrial uses, but the majority of home/consumer use cases probably print very infrequently these days. In that scenario inkjet is pretty bad because the ink dries out between uses - there is a reason it's such a common trope that inkjets never work right when you need them.
I switched to laser because I only print like maybe once a month on average (but when I need it, I need it). I'm not the slightest bit worried about the delta energy usage between my laser printer or the inkjet, and I'm sure the inkjet came out worse given the number of cartridges I had to throw away or paper I wasted printing diagnostics.
usrusr 16 hours ago [-]
None, in the months (sometimes years) it spends switched off (off, not standby) between print jobs. It's a quarter of a century old and I can still get replacement cartridges when I need them.
taneq 17 hours ago [-]
Are you counting the energy used for print head cleaning, and to manufacture all the wasted ink?
jelder 4 hours ago [-]
Is laser printing more feasible? I've had the same Brother black & white laser for almost a decade and it's more than adequate for everything I do. If I ever need color, I send it off to a service that has much nicer printers than most people would ever want in their homes.
abetusk 12 hours ago [-]
I certainly don't have deep knowledge in this area but my understanding is that the cartridge is basically a cavity with a small hole at the bottom and a piezo electric element at the top to sputter liquid down. The tolerances are tight but considering how advanced manufacturing is, I would imagine someone competent could design and prototype it with the tools and manufacturing ecosystem that's available now.
There's at least one project that has tried to design an actual DIY/open-source inkjet printer [0], along with inkjet print heads [1].
The ink most likely need some special sauce? But I imagine there's many organizations that can specialize in making the ink so that it can be treated close to a commodity. If not, maybe this can also be engineered?
This printer uses HP 502 cartridges. Readily available, but don't expect to save on ink costs compared to a regular HP printer.
They do claim that this printer will print in black when the colour cartridge is empty, which they imply is not possible with common printers. The only time I ever encountered that I simply removed the colour cartridge and the printer was happy to print in black.
drum55 20 hours ago [-]
That's why this is just using off the shelf cartridges with commercial heads.
jboy55 19 hours ago [-]
Which is why its more surprising this was first announced last year and there's no Proof of Concept demo yet?
But really, I've given up on ink jet printers, and have gone the cheap B&W laser route for anything I need to print at home (In the past year, 2 times, a backup ticket and some paperwork that needed a real signature sent back).
But when I had them, the thing that went bad 99.999% of the time was the cartridges or a clogged nozzle on the head. So the advantage here, on the repairability side not DRM, is the rails and motors?
Also that cutter is going to be a pain, having worked on Lightjet printers, that cutter was nearly all field service issues until the FEs started leaving the "laser" key so lab managers could reset the blade themselves.
Lol then 3D printing must be space technology that only the most advanced materials labs in the world can achieve, yeah inkjet is not simple, but it’s also not magic,
Double_a_92 11 hours ago [-]
The issue is mainly the nozzle. Ironically 3D printers are a lot easier there, since you just need to melt a thick wire, and not worry about microscopically small droplets.
amenghra 20 hours ago [-]
An open source all-in-one-printer would be a great device to have. For eg I would love to have the scanner include a camera. So I can get “instant scans” most of the time, and a higher res scan when needed. Maybe the camera could also notice when the person making copies or scans forgot their original and ping them?
sunshinesnacks 20 hours ago [-]
The required super wide field of view for the camera could be tricky, without making the box really deep. Or am I not thinking about it right?
nerdsniper 19 hours ago [-]
You'd probably need some basic custom lens (not crazy $$) that would distort the heck out of the image, but you could correct the shape in software. Given that GP wanted this to be the "low quality / high speed" secondary scanning option, the inevitable loss of quality would be acceptable.
Seeing chromatic aberration on a document scan would be strange, but this is basically how many document scans are created today (using phone camera + software correction). It's just the lens effects from this cheap lens would be a lot worse than what Apple/Samsung/Google can do with their super expensive to design custom lens stacks.
KennyBlanken 18 hours ago [-]
That's pointless when ADF scanners will do a dual-side scan, at around 2-3 seconds per page, and more importantly, can do so with a stack of pages.
They've been around long enough that you can find them all over the place used for quite cheap and they likely only need a cleaning.
londons_explore 9 hours ago [-]
Looks like this printer uses HP 85 ink cartridges, so the hardest bits of the engineering are being bought in from HP.
The rest of a printer aren't too hard to design and make, especially if you don't have super tight budget constraints.
pbhjpbhj 1 minutes ago [-]
Makes sense, presumably if the project is well enough supported then they can move on to cartridge/head production, or modify to use whatever heads are available.
Out of ignorance, I wonder how IPR will work with interoperability rights. Patent rights seem like they might not be exhausted when you buy a spare part to use in third-party device, vs when you buy a spare part for an OEM device.
I'm guessing all the tech here has aged out of patent protection though?
ZiiS 9 hours ago [-]
Generic inkjet cartridges (including the nozzles) and ink are readily available. The head movement and is easier then a 3d printer, the will be some learning's for the paper handling but seems very achievable to me.
bryanrasmussen 8 hours ago [-]
interesting that on the front page at this time is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48757900 "The Age of Personalized Hardware Is Coming", which, it seems that it may be, but not for inkjet printers?
poulpy123 18 hours ago [-]
The second part is verbose but say absolutely nothing of the difficulty and issues. It could be applied to anything, even cooking a steak
NooneAtAll3 19 hours ago [-]
isn't inkjet an outdated tech by now?
landgenoot 12 hours ago [-]
Offices, maybe.
Photography, not at all. Some photographers prefer inkjet over minilab.
loloquwowndueo 18 hours ago [-]
How so?
NooneAtAll3 14 hours ago [-]
laser printers are cheap and don't need catriges
d3Xt3r 9 hours ago [-]
Color laser printers (MFPs with ADFs to be exact) aren't exactly cheap. Last I checked they were 2-3x more expensive than equivalent inkjets, and occupied a lot of space too.
NooneAtAll3 1 hours ago [-]
> and occupied a lot of space too.
all printers are the size of microwave. Inkjets aren't any smaller
> MFPs with ADFs to be exact
at that point you're talking about a full-on office appliance and far above DIY repair scale the discussion is about
loloquwowndueo 7 hours ago [-]
How do laser printers not need cartridges? I own two, mind you.
f1shy 7 hours ago [-]
Well, the same thinking was going on when Mr. Daniel Gelbart [0] started Creo. In all the videos I've seen from Gelbart, he always repeats that many things are being done wrong, he has some answers, but people keep copying bad design.
Saying "no way you will succeed, is way too difficult! look how hard is it for HP" is absolute non-sense.
Also, if the whole printing head is from HP, and they sell it for the price they do, I do not think is the most advanced science the mankind achieved. I would have such doubt maybe if somebody wants to compete with ASML. But Inkjet? really? such an old technology with all patents expired?
Try to find an typical consumer inkjet printer on AliExpress, you won't find any, or if you do, it will be someone reselling the usual brands like HP or Canon. You will find label printers, industrial printers, 3D printers, thermal printers, and all sorts of weird stuff, but none of them able to put ink on a stack of A4 paper.
If the Chinese, who are known for being able to make knockoffs of everything are not able to make inkjet printers, this should tell you how hard it is.
It addition to the print head, reliable paper transport is also really hard. That problem is often sidestepped by using a paper roll or by printing one sheet at a time, as it is the case for the Openprinter.
____tom____ 18 hours ago [-]
No.
Per Google, most HP printers are made in China.
A more likely explanation has to do with the economics of ink jet printers. The ink sales are so profitable that HP and other manufacturers subsidize their printers. This leads to prices at or near cost.
Since Ali express vendors can't count on follow on ink sales, they can't compete on price. And competing on price is Ali express's reason for existence.
So, ink jet printer are harder to find on Ali express. At least, low end consumer focused ink jet printers.
Laser printers, which aren't subsidized are common
ValdikSS 17 hours ago [-]
Several Chinese companies have their own domestic laser printers, claiming of in-house components and development (Cumtenn, ZoneWin), and one company does inkjet printers in addition to lasers (Deli Printer).
ZoneWin, a laser printer company, made a clone of both HP LaserJet 1020 and LaserJet M1005, which reuse most of the original/compatible parts (Q2612A cartridge). They claim it's 100% domestic parts only.
Sure it could be fraud but it could also just work.
zerobees 18 hours ago [-]
I think the top-ranking comment about complexity is off base: they're not inventing inkjet printing from scratch. It's basically a bunch of existing modules in a new package, presumably with the promise that you will not need to buy subscriptions or DRMed ink cartridges.
Is robustness and reparability a compelling pitch? If I'm counting right, I owned eight different printers in my life. Dot matrix, dye sublimation, inkjet, laser. I don't think a single one ever required any serious repairs beyond replacing consumables, clearing paper jams, and pulling out lint. I upgraded as the technology improved. My first laser printer needed about 4x as much desk space as the current one.
znhll 18 hours ago [-]
> I don't think a single one ever required any serious repairs beyond replacing consumables
I think your experience has been an outlier. I've had several printers from different brands also, and have had some that last a long time, and still print with decent quality even with off-brand ink/toner. However, quite a lot have also failed due to bad capacitors, bad power modules, or the printer or it's firmware just refused to work/print for whatever reason and the manufacturer response was: "buy a new one." There's definitely planned obsolescence built into these machines, and that's why people dislike them, aside from the fact they can be a pain to configure. That's in addition to the ink DRM and other shitty cartel like bs from printer manufacturers.
abustamam 13 hours ago [-]
I owned a Brother inkjet for some time. I'd print maybe a few times a year. But it seemed like every time I needed to print, the printer was out of ink. Granted I used an ink service (ie not official brother ink) but still where the heck was the ink going?
I've since switched to a Brother LaserJet and I'm still on the starter toner after a couple of years.
Gigachad 12 hours ago [-]
An inkjet printer has to be used at least monthly if not more often. If you left it plugged in, the printer was likely squirting ink in to a waste tank to prevent the nozzles from drying out and ruining the printer.
Laser toner can sit unused without drying out (it's dry powder already).
iamjackg 3 hours ago [-]
I realized just a couple weeks ago that I've had my Brother laser printer for 10 years, and I've only changed the toner once -- so long ago that I don't remember when that was.
Are any of those printers inkjets? I think tracking dots are strictly a laser printer thing.
rini17 7 hours ago [-]
Nope. Some even refuse to print black and white when yellow ink tuns off.
Oxodao 6 hours ago [-]
Yeah maybe you're lucky but I've had 3 printers in my life, ink jets, and those are the three individual worst tech experience I've ever had
Snacklive 18 hours ago [-]
Do you have any recommendations for models or what should i look out for ?
My mom wanted a printer for her birthday and it's been a few months without any success when it comes to selecting the right model
qingcharles 17 hours ago [-]
I would highly recommend getting a laser, especially if she isn't doing a huge amount of printing. You can leave them forever without printing and they'll just spin up and work in an instant. Both B+W and color ones are really decently priced these days.
orangesilk 12 hours ago [-]
I want to second this: Unregular use is compelling use case for a laser printer.
ssl-3 11 hours ago [-]
If she wants to print words or shapes on paper, then a laser printer is perfect. If non-photographic color is also useful, then a color laser printer is fine. They're happy with heavy usage, and ~zero usage, and everything in between. Brother is the answer here; they tend to be low-bullshit.
If she wants to print color photographs regularly and absolutely doesn't want to wait for them, then: Some manner of inkjet. Brother inkjets take care of themselves (as long as they're powered up) with a ~daily automated song-and-dance to help avoid the head-clogging issue that many other inkjets face, but even then it's a more fickle technology than laser printing is.
It's also important to compare the price/convenience of printing photos at home to having someone else do it. Buying high-quality prints (whether from online services that deliver by mail or from the local pharmacy or big box) can be cheaper and better quality than doing it at home, and make maintaining the printing machine someone else's problem.
(edit- I unintentionally left it to implication, but: If she wants to print color photographs only once or twice per year, then... she's probably way, way better off by not doing that at home. At all.)
zerobees 17 hours ago [-]
I never had problems with Brother for laser and Canon for inkjet. The models I have are no longer being manufactured, so I can't recommend anything specific. I did my best to stay way from HP for inkjet, they always had bad rep.
hn_throwaway_99 18 hours ago [-]
> Is robustness and reparability a compelling pitch? If I'm counting right, I owned eight different printers in my life.
Like the other commenter mentioned, I think your experience is likely an outlier. But more to the point, the way printer companies make money (lose money on the printer, make it up on ink), the couple times my printer has broken, I just bought a brand new printer. I'm sure the printer probably could have been easily fixed but it wasn't even like that was a decent option.
This printer probably isn't for everyone but there are enough of us who are so fed up with "subscription fatigue" and locked down devices that having a tool that I fully own and could fix if necessary is appealing.
bArray 15 hours ago [-]
> With Openprinter, you are free to choose between standard sheets or a roll of versatile paper.
A few other comments have concentrated on the printer head and ink cartridge, but the roll vs sheets interests me. Manipulating sheets of paper is actually quite a difficult problem to solve - and there is only a demonstration of paper placement. Loading page after page is actually really not easy at all. There is no example of it printing.
I see they got a nomination for a design award [1], which in my personal experience has been a negative signal for successful projects. On the same page they mention that they also mention that they don't even know how much this will cost yet:
> We know this is your most frequently asked question! Final pricing depends on a moving puzzle of production volumes, BoM costs, industrialization expenses, regulatory certifications, and final engineering developments.
On the crowd funding page it mentions for parts [2]:
> Main board: Raspberry Pi Zero W
> Cartridge board: STM32 MCU
Not a specific MCU variant, and the specifics of the Pi variant (i.e. RAM) are not mentioned. I would expect these parts would be locked in by now. I have a feeling that this is not quite as ready as made out - I think there is still R&D going on.
It's also the one everyone can buy online for $19, not Pi Zero 2 W (always out of stock)
bArray 3 hours ago [-]
> I agree with the rest but Pi Zero W is a specific machine with 512 MB RAM:
I thought they came in different variants - my meat-based LLM must have hallucinated it.
> It's also the one everyone can buy online for $19, not Pi Zero 2 W (always out of stock)
I get the impression that they don't actively manufacture Pi Zero W anymore and it's all old stock. Rapid for example say they have an availability of 761 (at time of writing) [1], but are those all within Rapid's control, or what is reported at Raspberry Pi's remaining stock? If you sell 1k printer units, can you put a Pi Zero W in all of them?
Compute modules are probably a bit more reliable and there is some capability with other modules, specifically the DDR2 form factor ones [2] (which is my favorite form factor). For example, ClockWork sold their own compatible compute modules [3].
It costs $20 and comes with wifi and bluetooth. Seems like a valid choice to me.
sschueller 4 hours ago [-]
An ESP32 is way cheaper and has Wifi and BLe as well. I updated a label printer with an ESP32-S3 to add wifi[1] and it has plenty performance. It is even available with dual-band wifi 6[2]. Most processing is done outside the printer on the sending party anyway.
They are largely sold out, especially at quantity. Not something I would currently be looking to base a product on.
esskay 20 hours ago [-]
Unless I'm missing something using this in a commercial application would be a license violation:
> Open Printer is distributed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
> This means that everyone is free to use, share, and modify the project, provided they credit the original author, share derivatives under the same license, and do not use it for commercial purposes.
It's also not opensource yet, there's a vague mention of "when its ready" it'll be released.
SwellJoe 19 hours ago [-]
What about that license makes you think you can't use the device (i.e. print things) for commercial purposes?
The license applies to the thing, not the thing you print using the thing. Me writing software or prose on a computer running Linux using a GPL editor wouldn't change that the copyright of what I write belongs to me, the author.
You can't make a commercial competitor of this printer using their design, but using the printer for its intended purpose (printing) is obviously unrelated to that.
avianlyric 19 hours ago [-]
> You can't make a commercial competitor of this printer using their design
Which means it's not open source. Open source means you have the right to distribute work however you want, including commercially, provided you also provide the source under the same license terms as the original.
The second you slap a non-commercial limitation on there, it ceases to be open source.
SwellJoe 18 hours ago [-]
I didn't plan to go into the printer manufacturing business, and there's nothing more open, AFAIK. HP won't let you fix it when they brick your printer for not using their more expensive than blood ink.
stavros 18 hours ago [-]
Of course it's not open source, there's no source to even be open or closed yet! It is Creative Commons, though, which is different.
cwillu 17 hours ago [-]
It may be using a CC license, but nothing that's marked NC is meaningfully part of the commons. Yes, some guy can make a part to fix his printer, but that guy can't sell those parts to other people.
The existence of a service manual doesn't mean you can get parts once the company disappears or loses interest.
poulpy123 18 hours ago [-]
It's open source : you have the right to study, copy, share and modify
Aachen 6 hours ago [-]
but conditions apply to that. Those rights you mention are not available in every circumstance, specifically in commercial settings in this case. That's the point being made; why many consider that not an open source license (not saying I agree or disagree)
dofm 16 hours ago [-]
This is probably inevitable at this point and at least it's a legit licence and not the weird sad bespoke wobbly nonsense Prusa went with. They clearly need something like this for exactly the same reasons.
esskay 8 hours ago [-]
Ugh yes agree, that Prusa one was a massive misstep.
VorpalWay 20 hours ago [-]
This is interesting, but it seems to be a crowdfunding campaign only. I wish them the best of luck (the cause is worthy for sure), but buyer beware at this point.
(I myself don't 2D print enough that an ink based printer makes sense for me. Ink tends to dry, so for me a laser printer that can sit for months at a time makes more sense. I use the scanner as well as my 3D printer far more often.)
I wonder how they will handle the nonsense around yellow tracking dots[1] etc. Hopefully that doesn't become a problem.
Unfortunately they mainly use Discord and Instagram. They post updates on Instagram regularly but are quite active on Discord and often ask for community feedback there and post updates there as well. I've been closely following them for a few months
The printer surveillance is my main draw to this project. EFF basically came to the conclusion that all Western printers likely have some sort of surveillance like that. I've confirmed with them on the Discord that they are not required to implement any such surveillance
15155 20 hours ago [-]
> I wonder how they will handle the nonsense around yellow tracking dots[1] etc. Hopefully that doesn't become a problem.
What's there to handle? They just don't include them and there's no statute that requires them to.
VorpalWay 20 hours ago [-]
Hm, I guess there is no law. But why would so many manufacturers include this unless there is some legal reason or other pressure on them to do so?
t-3 19 hours ago [-]
National security letters or old boys network or maybe just fat bribes to the right engineer. Could be a requirement for government procurement too, so not a law, just the requirement of a huge customer with deep pockets and negative price sensitivity.
Dibby053 13 hours ago [-]
>or other pressure on them
Counterfeiting was a big worry as high-resolution color printers became cheap. They did it motu proprio just like today ~all AI gen services watermark their outputs.
attila-lendvai 20 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
cwillu 19 hours ago [-]
Thanks for letting us know, I guess?
flexagoon 18 hours ago [-]
Unlike now, where instead of saying your hypothesis you're just letting every reader come up with what they think is a crazy conspiracy theory and ascribe it to you?
abetusk 12 hours ago [-]
From their FAQ:
> Open Printer is distributed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
The non-commercial clause makes it non-open by the commonly accepted term of "open" in this context.
nickpinkston 2 hours ago [-]
This is really cool and I want one, but please someone tell them to put a clear CTA button above the fold saying "Pre-Order" or something.
Also, the bottom spinning button CTA doesn't read like a CTA to me. My skimming eyes almost missed, but YMMV.
Other than that - awesome project and godspeed OpenPrinter team!
ssddanbrown 20 hours ago [-]
> Open Printer is distributed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
So not open source.
einpoklum 19 hours ago [-]
The license doesn't apply to the things you print with it.
Are you miffed by the restriction on you selling derivative open printers?
cwillu 19 hours ago [-]
Yes, because that's the thing that makes it open and able to survive the death or corruption of the entity holding the copyright.
culi 15 hours ago [-]
The blueprint will be open source and you could technically build it yourself if you have the patience. They are quite proud of how few parts are actually involved in it
cwillu 13 hours ago [-]
If it's CC-NC, it's not open source though, that's the point: a license that restricts fields of endeavor is not an open source license.
yjftsjthsd-h 19 hours ago [-]
If nobody can sell me the printer or replacement parts for it after the initial vendor inevitably goes out of business, that's a problem.
einpoklum 8 hours ago [-]
They actually can sell you replacement parts, they just can't do it as a commercial endeavor. You have a point though.
mrsssnake 18 hours ago [-]
As much as this is nice protect, and physical one so different things any, still you cannot give/sell some software/design/media and restrict who, where and how someone can use it (noncommercial, not in this country, not at that phase of moon) while calling it open source, public domain, or similar.
As long as softwsre isn't going to be proprietary, it is a good idea just shouldn't misguide about being open source.
system2 17 hours ago [-]
OpenPrinter is the same as OpenAI. Nothing open about it.
RobotToaster 11 hours ago [-]
> Open Printer is distributed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
I had an Epson Ecotank for a couple of years. The printer heads got clogged all the time. We bought a series of cleaning products to address it, they often solved the problem for only a few prints. We finally gave up and bought a Brother laser printer.
This project seems like it's trying to address a similar market to the Ecotank. What assurances can the project team provide that OpenPrinter will have better reliability?
eKIK 16 hours ago [-]
I have an Ecotank and my parents have one too (data set size of 2 :). I've had it for 4-5 years now and it's superb for my simple use case (occasional low cost printing at home).
I did initially run into clogged heads too, until I scheduled a test print every month which uses all colors. That way no single color stays unused for too long, and it's been working like a charm ever since.
If the heads are already "degraded" there are two (or more?) cleaning programs available from within the official printer driver settings dialog. They did resolve my initial issues.
Epson could definitely do a better job of informing users though by slapping a big warning on the thing saying "you need to print something every X days to avoid issues".
novok 13 hours ago [-]
what they really need is a built in print program that just prints a color exercise sheet every 2 weeks.
Gigachad 18 hours ago [-]
If you print occasionally then laser is the best option. It's just not usable for photo printing. You ideally want to be using the printer every week or two with inkjet.
slashdave 19 hours ago [-]
Just bought a Brother ink tank printer (they have a whole line). Let's see how long it lasts.
KennyBlanken 18 hours ago [-]
Thirteen models that all look nearly identical and a website that doesn't even remotely help you distinguish between them.
I see the same people have been in charge of product design and marketing at Brother for the last twenty years...
deinonychus 24 minutes ago [-]
and the product browsing page crashes when i apply more than 2 filters or attempt to sort by price. half of the visible products are out of stock or no longer manufactured. really enjoyable experience.
rmunn 16 hours ago [-]
I also had an Epson ink-tank printer (I don't think it was an Ecotank model name, but similar idea) for several years, battled print head clogs all the time. Found that Windex worked pretty well for dissolving the clogs. (The dad from My Big Fat Greek Wedding was right about something!) But what eventually got me to switch was that the maintenance cartridge — the big sponge under the printer that soaks up the ink pushed through the heads during a head-cleaning operation — was getting full, and it's not a user-serviceable component in Epson printers! They wanted me to ship it off to their service center, and pay who knows how much to swap out the maintenance cartridge. Nope, not gonna do that.
Ditched Epson for Canon. I've had my Canon ink-tank printer for a couple years now. Had ONE serious clog that required multiple flushes to clear the clog, but mostly it's been clog-free. But the best part is that I can just order a new maintenance cartridge from Canon for about $12 + shipping. So when it fills up (probably in another couple years) I can just swap it out myself and keep on printing.
Won't ever buy another Epson printer again. Canon has been great so far.
imtringued 10 hours ago [-]
Ecotank printers are worse in terms of clogging problems, because there is a tank and a hose vs a sealed cartridge. The ink has to flow through the entire system and that means you will have to print at least once a week.
miladyincontrol 4 hours ago [-]
Best protip I ever heard was to just automate a weekly print, and to delay it a week any time you intentionally print.
cwillu 17 hours ago [-]
It sounds like OpenPrinter will be using existing ink cartridges with the print heads built-in; I presume they will therefore have the same reliability.
Alien1Being 12 hours ago [-]
Laser printers are so much more economical.
I use Brother black and white laser printer
with after market toner cartridges from eBay .
Print around 200 pages a day.
Around 5000 pages for 37 AUD ie around 25 USD.
The paper costs more per page than the toner.
Just make sure you stay away from HP branded printers...
jsilence 3 hours ago [-]
Or get a good old LaserJet 4050 used somewhere.
Indestructible workhorse.
keithnz 11 hours ago [-]
yeah, I have a cheap brother laser printer, I don't print that much, but it's been solid for several years. I did have an HP, but it was incredibly problematic, would jam rather easily. Works fine under linux as well.
jeffhuys 9 hours ago [-]
Does the ink ever dry? That’s my biggest problem with non-lasers - I print maybe 10-100 pages a year but every time I need to change the toner because it’s too dry. And do you print color or no?
fsuts 9 hours ago [-]
No doesn’t dry up. It’s why I change from inkjet. And yes they print colour too.
They are fine for documents but if you want details photo printing then inkjet I think has an edge, but for most people laser is better choice.
keithnz 5 hours ago [-]
I feel like for photos you are better off getting them done via a print service anyways, they are pretty cheap and have much better hardware
utopiah 12 hours ago [-]
I follow this project thanks to CrowdSupply from which I regularly buy open hardware.
Honestly I'm torn on this one. I will probably buy it but from a purely philosophical standpoint. Why? Well I do have a black & white HP laser printer that I've been using with my Linux devices for years now. It just works. There are a lot of terrible printers out there with wacky firmwares pinging home to their manufacturers. Some require ink with DRM, some companion apps, etc.
But... and that's my main point, are just basic printers that work anywhere with anything. There are quite a few to the point that among peripheral printers might be one of the safest one can safely "yeah it will probably work with open system no problem" relatively confidently (still do check first).
So... yeah it's cool but in terms of openness of our entire IT ecosystem printing doesn't appear to me as the priority gap to fill.
Cool project anyway!
VladVladikoff 12 hours ago [-]
What if I want a printer that won’t print traceable dots on everything I print?
tonyedgecombe 12 hours ago [-]
Use a monochrome laser printer for your ransom notes.
VladVladikoff 12 hours ago [-]
In all honesty for years I had one in my small home office, and every time I printed something I could smell it in the room afterwards for an hour, sometimes even getting headaches from this. Switched to inkjet a few years ago and will never look back.
ssl-3 11 hours ago [-]
What was the printer?
I haven't experienced the odor of ozone when printing at home since my HP Laserjet 4 died from water damage 18 years ago.
My current Brother laser printer (an MFC-2750DW, IIRC) is so non-stinky that I haven't thought about for a very long time.
VladVladikoff 3 hours ago [-]
Samsung ML-1630. I had it for a really long time. I had opened it up to solder the page counter to ground so it always thought it was on page 0, instead of demanding to replacement. And I had manually refilled the toner many times into the toner cart. But I don’t think the smell is because of that, it’s the same laser printer / photocopier smell you smell in all print shops. I believe it is small aerosolized toner particles, makes me wonder if long term print shop workers have a higher cancer rate.
roryirvine 2 hours ago [-]
Possibly ozone, generated by the corona wire - the printer will have a filter which is only good for some (large) number of duty cycles.
Very few domestic / small office printers will ever hit that number, but for a ~20 year old model, it's possible yours has. The service manual suggests it's rated for 50,000 pages (as are the drum and roller), but unfortunately isn't replaceable.
Time for a new model?
(The canonical print shop smell is ozone - imagesetters produced way more than a laser printer - together with solvent from the inks and lots and lots of stale coffee. Possibly mixed with cigarette smoke, depending on just how long ago you're talking about...)
erremerre 8 hours ago [-]
Ramson notes must be coloured so that it is clear it isn't a scam.
tonyedgecombe 12 hours ago [-]
It's interesting how that has changed. Printing used to soak up a big part of corporate IT's time and budget. It was generally thought of as the most annoying part of the job.
dinkleberg 19 hours ago [-]
I really love the idea of a paper roll rather than individual sheets. Being able to print out to the size you want rather than only in pre-set sizes is quite cool.
agumonkey 9 hours ago [-]
I do wonder if they print end of page lines for you to cut afterward (sorry couldn't read the whole webpage, maybe they explained it)
dymk 3 hours ago [-]
Built in cutter
krick 6 hours ago [-]
This is all great, but, really, "Open" in "Openprinter" is enough of a sales pitch, because we all know what's the problem with all other printers. I don't need to scroll through all these pretty pictures of hands and tables to get me ready to hear the main thing. Even if I am ready to believe that you can deliver (which is a big if), the only things I am interested in are "how much" and "when do you promise it". And when I scroll all the way through and click on crowdfunding link, it turns out that "This project is launching soon".
What's even the point of this landing page in this state?
swiftcoder 8 hours ago [-]
I don't get why this isn't an ink tank printer. Yes, those HP cartridges are technically refillable, but the printheads tend to clog up after a few refills, and then you are stuck paying retail for another cartridge.
It would be a lot more aspirational to figure out how to build a tank-based printer (although maybe its not possible to compete with the incumbents on price in this space)
jeroenhd 8 hours ago [-]
Printheads are nanotechnology with extreme precision requirements. The rest of the printer is a few well-timed stepper motors, simple in comparison. HP cartridges including the printheads will take a lot of complexity away from the open design.
In theory you could probably modify one of these by grabbing an HP cartridge and slapping an ink tank on top with the right sponge for transferring the ink over. Selling parts from HP printer cartridges might creep a little too close to HP's patent lawyers, though, and having users open cartridges to extract the print heads themselves sounds like a messy solution that would reduce the appeal.
I'm sure that given time, someone will 3D print an ink tank holder that will let you use cheap ink supplies through the expensive HP cartridges.
whyoh 7 hours ago [-]
>HP cartridges including the printheads will take a lot of complexity away from the open design.
Yes, but it also means it won't be cheaper or more reliable than a regular printer. The print head is what fails most often and you'll still have to buy a new one.
dymk 3 hours ago [-]
Aftermarket ink cartridges that are HP compatible are quite cheap compared to brand name
cryo32 8 hours ago [-]
I suspect the hard bit is the print head. So they’re just buying that in.
_ink_ 6 hours ago [-]
My experience with ink jet was, that the printheads clog up because I use it too rarely. So I like the idea, but it probably has the same problem.
TL;DR: I'm surprised this isn't a laser printer, as those are actually quite a bit easier to design and manufacture, especially if you can use a cheap, older, commonly available, remanufacturable toner cartridge.
SwellJoe 19 hours ago [-]
There are still quality laser printers on the market without extortion and surveillance built-in, unlike inkjets. The need for an open laser printer is less dire than for an open inkjet.
myself248 19 hours ago [-]
And not a single solid-ink-onto-paper sublimation printer, that I'm aware. There are badge printers still using a dye-sub ribbon, but the Tektronix Phaser, later the Xerox Phaser, is completely gone.
I wonder why. Were the consumables too cheap and the printers too reliable to be commercially viable? Did color laser printers catch up in terms of print quality? Did it have some other fatal flaw?
OneDeuxTriSeiGo 18 hours ago [-]
Hot melt ink/solid ink has a laundry list of problems that complicate it.
- A single ink clog can destroy a printhead.
- partial clogs can result in ugly messes with ink smeared all over the pages and the assembly further smearing on later prints.
- the printer has to be calibrated to the specific formulation of solid ink to work properly. A bad ink batch or calibrating to the wrong formulation (or a drift in specs on the formulation) can cause clogs, print head failures, etc.
- solid ink printing massively complicates lamination if that's something you need to do (ex in an office).
Overall it's a far more unforgiving process. You can't really have aftermarket inks like you can with modern inks and even variations in the first party manufacturing process can have catastrophic effects on the print hardware.
myself248 5 hours ago [-]
Interesting, thank you! That is quite a list.
I only used one for a few years, and never thought to laminate the pages because they didn't need it -- dye-sub wax-printed pages were already suitable for outdoor maps because the wax repelled water, and they held up where inkjet pages became a smeary mess immediately.
We definitely did wash our hands before and after loading ink blocks, I remember being cautioned about that.
Oh well. I guess my memories are better than the tech deserved. Won't be the last time.
Joel_Mckay 16 hours ago [-]
"There are still quality laser printers on the market without extortion and surveillance built-in"
Every manufacturer volunteered to rob their own customers of anonymity. Even at the OS and application level (Adobe) people are being tagged with robust watermarks. In general, still no one cares. =3
f1shy 7 hours ago [-]
It only works if yellow cartridge is installed. And is anonymous, because it only identifies the serial nr., make and model of the printer.
Joel_Mckay 58 minutes ago [-]
The unique properties of every imaging/printing system are usually robust in identifying specific devices. Not really anonymous if eventually registered, compared, or metadata indexed.
It is also common for people to create urban legends rather than discuss how to actually fix legal policy failures. As previously stated, consumers implicitly gave permission though sustained inaction on industry volunteering to help track customers.
An OSS printer would be cool from a standards/driver perspective, but microfluidics are a nontrivial technology. Bloomberg also paid lobbyists >$23m to try to mandate "AI" R.A.T. installation (company associated with Palantir) on 3D printers to attempt convincing criminals to care about laws again.
It is unclear if such action is consistent with constitutional legal precedents, but it is certainly hilarious to see kids figure out the mess a prior generation creates. Best of luck, =3
cwillu 19 hours ago [-]
Inkjet cartridges often contain the print heads; toner cartridges still need a fuser roll and imaging head to do anything.
exmadscientist 13 hours ago [-]
Part of my point is that making a print head driver is, in general, harder than making a laser imaging head. A lot harder.
Of course the details of what specific parts are purchaseable on the open market can and will change this calculus a lot.
dymk 3 hours ago [-]
Color printing?
phkahler 4 hours ago [-]
If the ink is refillable due to lack of DRM, why not just buy a commercial printer that supports those cartridges?
idorosen 19 hours ago [-]
I want to buy one of these just to support projects like it.
logdahl 20 hours ago [-]
Would be interested in others take on this. Personally, I wonder:
- By rolling the paper, will it really stay flat after printing?
- How easy / cheap will sourcing ink be?
vaylian 4 hours ago [-]
Probably a stupid question: But where do you get (refillable) ink for this printer from?
mminer237 2 hours ago [-]
You can buy bottles of ink on Amazon. Tank printers, jerryrigging, and people refilling cartridges have all been decently common for a long time, so there are plenty of random companies selling it.
Muromec 20 hours ago [-]
Image loading is too fancy and went on a lunch break I think.
nokeya 10 hours ago [-]
And then government will declare this printer illegal because of no yellow dots.
foxrider 9 hours ago [-]
Good thing they're not selling a printer then, they're selling a parts kit that you have to flash an open source controller firmware to and assemble yourself. Or you may just source them in any way you want. You can't really "outlaw" open source, we had this whole song and dance with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
karteum 10 hours ago [-]
2 questions :
* How can it can do 2-side printing ? (on a normal printer, you may print all the odd pages, turn the whole thing, and print all the even pages)
* Won't the cutter experience some wear ?
f1shy 7 hours ago [-]
1) Accepts also normal A4 paper according to specs
2) Yes, sure.
This feels like a bit of a "you must exist in society" situation. If you rule out every company that does any business with Israel you will have a hard time buying anything.
Aachen 6 hours ago [-]
First time I'm hearing of BDS. Looks like they want to boycott companies that help oppress Palestine (just going off of their homepage here). Since I don't know them, I'll speak generally of boycotts such as against e.g. Nestlé: Saying it's futile because you can't do it perfectly seems silly to me. You can't do everything right in life but you can try right? Minimise harm (as you see it) even if you can't take it away fully
Gigachad 4 hours ago [-]
The suggestion here is to boycott a printer because it uses a print head part from HP who sells servers to Israel.
The number of steps here is enough that you could rule out everything. And anything you think is left is just something you aren’t aware of a chain that links them.
magic_hamster 10 hours ago [-]
Unfortunately people still think BDS is relevant in any way.
purpleidea 10 hours ago [-]
When this is a good quality Laser printer let me know. Nobody really wants inkjet that's not for high end photo printing.
rubatuga 20 hours ago [-]
Isn't the paper feed the hardest part - the part that always gets jammed? I swear a paper roll is cheating.
dofm 16 hours ago [-]
It is cheating but it's very sensible cheating.
newman314 18 hours ago [-]
Seems interesting but I would like a laser version of this. Not ever going back to inkjet.
Fnoord 16 hours ago [-]
Hanging it on a wall like that would be great in say a tiny house / limited space. But what about dust entry? I got cats.
golem14 18 hours ago [-]
I was hoping to see a printer that say a prepper could build from scratch. This design 100% depends on commercial print cartridges containing the actual print-head. Once that clogs, you need to get another one, good luck getting one once production has stopped.
Also, if you wanted to avoid yellow dots, not sure if this is built into the cartridge or the firmware of the rest of the printer.
Now, I understand that would be hard to pull off. Maybe one could build a deskjet500 equivalent one.
Laser printers are quite complex as well, you need too many non-easy to build from scratch parts.
Maybe a dot matrix printer is possible.
I know for sure you can retrofit older electric typewriters, and those are pretty repairable.
a96 9 hours ago [-]
"From scratch", ie raw materials only, probably limits the results to plotters until you've bootstrapped some presicion machinery. And electronics. How many parts you're allowed is going to be an arbitrary choice anyway.
But the heads being disposable and one day unavailable is kind of a valid concern if a new source doesn't eventually turn up.
numpad0 12 hours ago [-]
I had thought about a post-apocalyptic prepper printer once, my conclusion was that you can just have a fax machine and a laptop. They're considered thoroughly obsolete, and almost free to take in used markets as well.
golem14 8 hours ago [-]
Yeah, Building a thermoprinter is probably doable, and making thermopaper seems plausible as well
ftchd 17 hours ago [-]
For some reason the 8 image grid only loads the first image, maybe there's no images to load?
system2 17 hours ago [-]
Also the videos are choppy gifs, not working machine at this point I guess.
s0a 18 hours ago [-]
just in time. this will certainly juice development of the equally important open source fax machine.
tomkarho 19 hours ago [-]
Richard they did it. You can rest now.
natebc 18 hours ago [-]
close, but not quite. I suppose in the way that originally set him off, yes.
It looks like they're using the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license so restricting commercial use which I think would run afoul of the purists definition of Freedom?
It's a cool printer, and I'd much rather have something like this!
TeaVMFan 19 hours ago [-]
Title Typo? Reparaible to Repairable?
prrrrrint 20 hours ago [-]
Been waiting for framework to make a regular 2D printer, of any kind, would buy at least two instantly. I will never, never, never buy a fing printer from hp/canon/epson/brother/etc with anti-consumer tech, I rather die.
To be less facetious though, this seems like a nice project (*), but I print so much less these days than in the past. I printed a lot of color stuff when I was in school; but these days I just settle for black/halftoning from a laser printer, for when I actually need something printed, and color on screen only.
---
(*) - except perhaps for the NC restriction in the license.
ktallett 20 hours ago [-]
It's such a good idea as a project and by the looks of things well executed. I also feel the style of the printer and the fact it can be a roll of paper will lead to interesting project ideas.
magic_hamster 10 hours ago [-]
Isn't this hilarious:
> A patent as well as a design and model registration have been made to protect the technical architecture and design of Openprinter.
So, open as in OpenAI.
Natfan 19 hours ago [-]
how has no on mentioned the typo in the title
s/Reparaible/Repairable
Titan2189 18 hours ago [-]
*no one
stackghost 18 hours ago [-]
>how has no on mentioned the typo in the title
Perhaps because it's irrelevant [0].
>Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
HP will simply prevent them from buying their head + cartridge bundle. By legal or by controlling more strictly bulk purchases of replacement parts.
jeroenhd 8 hours ago [-]
I don't think they need to ship the cartridges themselves. Customers can just go to any store selling printer ink and get the cartridges. It's a bit steep to also need to buy the money-making product HP wants to earn on, but you can just refill them with cheap ink when they're empty so it's not as big an issue in the long term.
HP could stop selling ink cartridges to stores, but they'd be shooting themselves in the foot as well.
protocolture 19 hours ago [-]
How do they get a satan inside it, i thought demons were proprietary.
ChrisArchitect 20 hours ago [-]
Please "repair" the title, maybe include OpenPrinter to start with, or solely.
Some previous discussion on the crowdfunding:
Inkjet printer with DRM-free ink will be launched via a crowdfunding campaign (2025)
I mean it’s about time a company makes a repairable and pro consumer printer. My god
baddash 14 hours ago [-]
is it better than a Brother printer, cause i've had one for like a decade and it's the shit
jzer0cool 19 hours ago [-]
Can we expect photos to be looking nice?
klysm 13 hours ago [-]
I’ll believe this when I see it on GitHub - rooting for them
delfugal 13 hours ago [-]
Does HP make money on printer sales? Ink is cash cow.
mrsssnake 17 hours ago [-]
Does "open source" even mean something anymore, or should we give up and just accept it as common catch-all phrase for everything that suck less, without one definition?
Open source AI without a source. Open source software, oh but only up to 4000 users after two years of release for people on south hemisphere. Now open source hardware but your copies of design are for noncommercial use, only our copies are not restriced.
dofm 16 hours ago [-]
If they don't do this (noncommercial, patent), the lesson is that a succession of Chinese vendors will take it and perhaps even secure patents on top of their work. They want time to finish it their way.
mrsssnake 10 hours ago [-]
My point is not whenever this is good or bad, hardware tools cannot by nature be self-replicated like software tools, but they should not call it open source.
tokai 17 hours ago [-]
Open source was always a ploy to water down libre/free.
Inkjet printing requires orders of magnitude more engineering expertise, materials science, industry experience and financial resources than most people imagine. That is the reason, open inkjet printers don't exist despite having been consumer products with the same drawbacks for more than forty years. That is why this is a pre-crowdfund landing page without a demonstrating a working prototype. I would like to be wrong, but I expect you to be waiting a long time. An inkjet printer is not a collection of off the shelf parts. It is a machine that operates at the edge of chemistry, fluid dynamics, and electro-mechanical design...you have to place tiny tiny drops of liquid ink on commodity wood pulp with precision under arbitrary environmental conditions, get that ink to dry on the wood pulp, but not in tank or nozzel, while producing acceptable color, durability, and ease of use. Also lawyers...there are patents.
I agree that the bigger challenge is going to be patents.
It also wouldn't surprise me to see HP add DRM to cartridges to authenticate the printer itself if this catches on. (Possibly requiring a printer driver/firmware update.)
Instead they use the fact mosfet gates have capacitance, and can therefore store 1 'bit' of information. Through a network of hundreds of MOSFETs, the right bits can be put on all the nozzle gates as needed, and then a 'fire' pulse is sent which for around a microsecond turns on a tiny heater (or not, depending on mosfet gate state). The heater boils some ink, making a pressure wave which travels down a pipe and makes a drop of ink fly out towards the paper. That heating and cooling again can happen around 10,000 times per second per nozzle (and there are ~300 nozzles).
I suspect this decision is because the custom silicon process needed to manufacture these nozzles is cheaper if they only have n type MOSFETs - and without p type MOSFETs you can't make a typical push pull logic gate.
The nozzles themselves are quite a lot of silicon - perhaps 100mm^2, with deep etched holes, and are effectively disposable, so I assume huge efforts have been taken to reduce costs - including this curious electrical design.
The protocol also is hugely irregular, which I suspect might be to avoid any wires on the chip needing to cross eachother.
It's also been widely held that ink cartridge compatibility tools/hacks are allowed under DMCA.
However, it does seem likely that there's probably some shenanigan involved in the area - one example I could think of would be if HP have patented the way the ink cartridges are retained in the printer, for example, that would have to be carefully audited. And there will be license and trade secrets issues with the use of the cartridges, although if they were reverse engineered cleanly and the printer doesn't come with cartridges, those are probably pretty easily side-stepped.
Any patents are probably expired or very close to it.
I could totally imagine a rapid upheaval of the patent system as soon as we see it being used against us.
Surely most/all of the patents around the actual inkjet printing function have expired though, right? I had inkjet printers in the mid 00s and if anything I feel like your average inkjet is worse these days.
It would not surprise me if something similar was happening here: HP's current cartridges have at least one piece that is under active patent protection and they don't manufacture any designs that have no patent protection. I don't know enough to state that's the case, but it wouldn't surprise me.
I would be shocked to discover that there are counterfeit print heads out there the same way there are counterfeit STM32 microcontrollers.
Unless the patents have something to do with the shape of the cartridge or they somehow have a patent on "technique to fill printer cartridge with ink" which would not be so surprising.
One thing I discovered was that there's whole Chinese industries supplying this stuff in the forms of industrial printers and the application-cartridges they consume. And they all had one thing in common: They were based around the functionality of an HP printer cartridge. That was the universal interface.
This leads me to believe that a print cartridge format can be supported by the marketplace for a very long time whether HP likes it or not.
[1]: Printing with white is neat. It sounds impossible and there are those who say it can't happen, but it exists. It's just problematic. The head gets perma-clogged with solids within minutes of disuse. So starting a print job is a race: Get everything set up, uncap the cartridge at the last moment, and then put that cap back on ASAP when the job is over.
Heck, it may actually save them money. At one point they were losing money on every printer sale and making it back in ink No idea if that’s still the case.
It just seems easier to fire off a cease and desist than to take a risk of other people messing around with your ecosystem.
This already happens for basically every commercially-available ink cartridge.
Many corporate and government types, especially lawyers, want control. They will go broke trying to control everyone and everything.
The photos clearly show HP cartridges installed.
Frankly, I think 99% of the reason they started integrating the print head with the cartridge was to avoid all the problems you so frequently see on printers that don’t use disposable heads.
Of course I have no way of verifying either way. Still I do think the project looks quite interesting, I'm in the market for a printer and this is certainly the most interesting one I've seen in a while.
https://spritesmods.com/?art=magicbrush
https://spritesmods.com/?art=inker
You're saying this as if it is a bad thing? I absolutely welcome this decision by the authors!
But how important?
Imagine someone saying the same thing about MongoDB's license, for example.
If you can't legally use the product, the fact that the source is available is meaningless. CC-NC is a source available license, not an open source license.
If we have a common design them surely we want people to be able to build their own, or buy a prebuilt?
If it is a noncommercial licence then it removes the other option to set up a business selling these pre-built. Not everyone wants to build a printer.
Which is to say you can make your gaming PC at home as a one-off if you want. Though personally I won't get near the toxic chemicals used.
They're noisier than ink printers, but non-industrial quality can be pretty reasonable for office-level noises.
Quality certainly isn't on par with laser printers, but for text (both Latin and CJK), it's perfectly clear.
Did you mean the late 80s'? Growing up we had a Panasonic dot matrix printer from the mid to late 80s that had no trouble with A4 paper.
A Matrix printer is essentially a typewriter with extra steps and typewriters had been eating any paper for .. a century before?
A lot of car shops with regular 100% humidity conditions will swear by dot matrix + tractor for feeding paper + printing. Plus, the carbon copy forms are guaranteed to be exact carbon copies which also leads to legal guarantees about copies of paper being provably exactly the same in the court of law.
The paper path itself is mechanically involved, but not to an impossible degree - it's hard to make it work, but it's not MEMS magic, it's manufacturable in the same way advanced 3D printers are manufacturable.
Still not worth it. My Brother is hitting 10 years now, and I'm trying to think of many scenarios where I really needed to print colour at home.
Even if you can afford a color laser, the problem is a color MFP (ie including a scanner) occupies a lot more space compared to a equivalent inkjet, and for some people this could be a deal breaker.
I switched to laser because I only print like maybe once a month on average (but when I need it, I need it). I'm not the slightest bit worried about the delta energy usage between my laser printer or the inkjet, and I'm sure the inkjet came out worse given the number of cartridges I had to throw away or paper I wasted printing diagnostics.
There's at least one project that has tried to design an actual DIY/open-source inkjet printer [0], along with inkjet print heads [1].
The ink most likely need some special sauce? But I imagine there's many organizations that can specialize in making the ink so that it can be treated close to a commodity. If not, maybe this can also be engineered?
[0] https://hackaday.io/project/167446-diy-inkjet-printer
[1] https://reprap.org/wiki/Reprappable-inkjet
They do claim that this printer will print in black when the colour cartridge is empty, which they imply is not possible with common printers. The only time I ever encountered that I simply removed the colour cartridge and the printer was happy to print in black.
But really, I've given up on ink jet printers, and have gone the cheap B&W laser route for anything I need to print at home (In the past year, 2 times, a backup ticket and some paperwork that needed a real signature sent back).
But when I had them, the thing that went bad 99.999% of the time was the cartridges or a clogged nozzle on the head. So the advantage here, on the repairability side not DRM, is the rails and motors?
Also that cutter is going to be a pain, having worked on Lightjet printers, that cutter was nearly all field service issues until the FEs started leaving the "laser" key so lab managers could reset the blade themselves.
Seeing chromatic aberration on a document scan would be strange, but this is basically how many document scans are created today (using phone camera + software correction). It's just the lens effects from this cheap lens would be a lot worse than what Apple/Samsung/Google can do with their super expensive to design custom lens stacks.
They've been around long enough that you can find them all over the place used for quite cheap and they likely only need a cleaning.
The rest of a printer aren't too hard to design and make, especially if you don't have super tight budget constraints.
Out of ignorance, I wonder how IPR will work with interoperability rights. Patent rights seem like they might not be exhausted when you buy a spare part to use in third-party device, vs when you buy a spare part for an OEM device.
I'm guessing all the tech here has aged out of patent protection though?
all printers are the size of microwave. Inkjets aren't any smaller
> MFPs with ADFs to be exact
at that point you're talking about a full-on office appliance and far above DIY repair scale the discussion is about
Saying "no way you will succeed, is way too difficult! look how hard is it for HP" is absolute non-sense.
Also, if the whole printing head is from HP, and they sell it for the price they do, I do not think is the most advanced science the mankind achieved. I would have such doubt maybe if somebody wants to compete with ASML. But Inkjet? really? such an old technology with all patents expired?
[0] https://www.weizmann.ac.il/WeizmannCompass/sections/features...
If the Chinese, who are known for being able to make knockoffs of everything are not able to make inkjet printers, this should tell you how hard it is.
It addition to the print head, reliable paper transport is also really hard. That problem is often sidestepped by using a paper roll or by printing one sheet at a time, as it is the case for the Openprinter.
Per Google, most HP printers are made in China.
A more likely explanation has to do with the economics of ink jet printers. The ink sales are so profitable that HP and other manufacturers subsidize their printers. This leads to prices at or near cost.
Since Ali express vendors can't count on follow on ink sales, they can't compete on price. And competing on price is Ali express's reason for existence.
So, ink jet printer are harder to find on Ali express. At least, low end consumer focused ink jet printers.
Laser printers, which aren't subsidized are common
https://www.delioa.com/products/a4-inkjet-printer/
ZoneWin, a laser printer company, made a clone of both HP LaserJet 1020 and LaserJet M1005, which reuse most of the original/compatible parts (Q2612A cartridge). They claim it's 100% domestic parts only.
https://www.rtmworld.com/news/new-chinese-made-printer-uses-...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XB7iAFXCJQM&t=17s&pp=2AERkAIB
Sure it could be fraud but it could also just work.
Is robustness and reparability a compelling pitch? If I'm counting right, I owned eight different printers in my life. Dot matrix, dye sublimation, inkjet, laser. I don't think a single one ever required any serious repairs beyond replacing consumables, clearing paper jams, and pulling out lint. I upgraded as the technology improved. My first laser printer needed about 4x as much desk space as the current one.
I think your experience has been an outlier. I've had several printers from different brands also, and have had some that last a long time, and still print with decent quality even with off-brand ink/toner. However, quite a lot have also failed due to bad capacitors, bad power modules, or the printer or it's firmware just refused to work/print for whatever reason and the manufacturer response was: "buy a new one." There's definitely planned obsolescence built into these machines, and that's why people dislike them, aside from the fact they can be a pain to configure. That's in addition to the ink DRM and other shitty cartel like bs from printer manufacturers.
I've since switched to a Brother LaserJet and I'm still on the starter toner after a couple of years.
Laser toner can sit unused without drying out (it's dry powder already).
https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-d...
My mom wanted a printer for her birthday and it's been a few months without any success when it comes to selecting the right model
If she wants to print color photographs regularly and absolutely doesn't want to wait for them, then: Some manner of inkjet. Brother inkjets take care of themselves (as long as they're powered up) with a ~daily automated song-and-dance to help avoid the head-clogging issue that many other inkjets face, but even then it's a more fickle technology than laser printing is.
It's also important to compare the price/convenience of printing photos at home to having someone else do it. Buying high-quality prints (whether from online services that deliver by mail or from the local pharmacy or big box) can be cheaper and better quality than doing it at home, and make maintaining the printing machine someone else's problem.
(edit- I unintentionally left it to implication, but: If she wants to print color photographs only once or twice per year, then... she's probably way, way better off by not doing that at home. At all.)
Like the other commenter mentioned, I think your experience is likely an outlier. But more to the point, the way printer companies make money (lose money on the printer, make it up on ink), the couple times my printer has broken, I just bought a brand new printer. I'm sure the printer probably could have been easily fixed but it wasn't even like that was a decent option.
This printer probably isn't for everyone but there are enough of us who are so fed up with "subscription fatigue" and locked down devices that having a tool that I fully own and could fix if necessary is appealing.
A few other comments have concentrated on the printer head and ink cartridge, but the roll vs sheets interests me. Manipulating sheets of paper is actually quite a difficult problem to solve - and there is only a demonstration of paper placement. Loading page after page is actually really not easy at all. There is no example of it printing.
I see they got a nomination for a design award [1], which in my personal experience has been a negative signal for successful projects. On the same page they mention that they also mention that they don't even know how much this will cost yet:
> We know this is your most frequently asked question! Final pricing depends on a moving puzzle of production volumes, BoM costs, industrialization expenses, regulatory certifications, and final engineering developments.
On the crowd funding page it mentions for parts [2]:
> Main board: Raspberry Pi Zero W
> Cartridge board: STM32 MCU
Not a specific MCU variant, and the specifics of the Pi variant (i.e. RAM) are not mentioned. I would expect these parts would be locked in by now. I have a feeling that this is not quite as ready as made out - I think there is still R&D going on.
[1] https://www.crowdsupply.com/open-tools/open-printer/updates/...
[2] https://www.crowdsupply.com/open-tools/open-printer
I agree with the rest but Pi Zero W is a specific machine with 512 MB RAM:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-w/
It's also the one everyone can buy online for $19, not Pi Zero 2 W (always out of stock)
I thought they came in different variants - my meat-based LLM must have hallucinated it.
> It's also the one everyone can buy online for $19, not Pi Zero 2 W (always out of stock)
I get the impression that they don't actively manufacture Pi Zero W anymore and it's all old stock. Rapid for example say they have an availability of 761 (at time of writing) [1], but are those all within Rapid's control, or what is reported at Raspberry Pi's remaining stock? If you sell 1k printer units, can you put a Pi Zero W in all of them?
Compute modules are probably a bit more reliable and there is some capability with other modules, specifically the DDR2 form factor ones [2] (which is my favorite form factor). For example, ClockWork sold their own compatible compute modules [3].
[1] https://www.rapidonline.com/raspberry-pi-sc0020-zero-w-singl...
[2] https://www.rapidonline.com/raspberry-pi-compute-module-cm3-...
[3] https://www.clockworkpi.com/shop
[1] https://stefan.schueller.net/posts/making-a-label-printer-wo...
[2] https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs/esp32-c5
> Open Printer is distributed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
> This means that everyone is free to use, share, and modify the project, provided they credit the original author, share derivatives under the same license, and do not use it for commercial purposes.
It's also not opensource yet, there's a vague mention of "when its ready" it'll be released.
The license applies to the thing, not the thing you print using the thing. Me writing software or prose on a computer running Linux using a GPL editor wouldn't change that the copyright of what I write belongs to me, the author.
You can't make a commercial competitor of this printer using their design, but using the printer for its intended purpose (printing) is obviously unrelated to that.
Which means it's not open source. Open source means you have the right to distribute work however you want, including commercially, provided you also provide the source under the same license terms as the original.
The second you slap a non-commercial limitation on there, it ceases to be open source.
The existence of a service manual doesn't mean you can get parts once the company disappears or loses interest.
(I myself don't 2D print enough that an ink based printer makes sense for me. Ink tends to dry, so for me a laser printer that can sit for months at a time makes more sense. I use the scanner as well as my 3D printer far more often.)
I wonder how they will handle the nonsense around yellow tracking dots[1] etc. Hopefully that doesn't become a problem.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots
The printer surveillance is my main draw to this project. EFF basically came to the conclusion that all Western printers likely have some sort of surveillance like that. I've confirmed with them on the Discord that they are not required to implement any such surveillance
What's there to handle? They just don't include them and there's no statute that requires them to.
Counterfeiting was a big worry as high-resolution color printers became cheap. They did it motu proprio just like today ~all AI gen services watermark their outputs.
> Open Printer is distributed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
The non-commercial clause makes it non-open by the commonly accepted term of "open" in this context.
Also, the bottom spinning button CTA doesn't read like a CTA to me. My skimming eyes almost missed, but YMMV.
Other than that - awesome project and godspeed OpenPrinter team!
So not open source.
Are you miffed by the restriction on you selling derivative open printers?
As long as softwsre isn't going to be proprietary, it is a good idea just shouldn't misguide about being open source.
Non commercial licences are not open source. https://community.oscedays.org/t/why-are-non-commercial-lice...
This project seems like it's trying to address a similar market to the Ecotank. What assurances can the project team provide that OpenPrinter will have better reliability?
I did initially run into clogged heads too, until I scheduled a test print every month which uses all colors. That way no single color stays unused for too long, and it's been working like a charm ever since.
If the heads are already "degraded" there are two (or more?) cleaning programs available from within the official printer driver settings dialog. They did resolve my initial issues.
Epson could definitely do a better job of informing users though by slapping a big warning on the thing saying "you need to print something every X days to avoid issues".
I see the same people have been in charge of product design and marketing at Brother for the last twenty years...
Ditched Epson for Canon. I've had my Canon ink-tank printer for a couple years now. Had ONE serious clog that required multiple flushes to clear the clog, but mostly it's been clog-free. But the best part is that I can just order a new maintenance cartridge from Canon for about $12 + shipping. So when it fills up (probably in another couple years) I can just swap it out myself and keep on printing.
Won't ever buy another Epson printer again. Canon has been great so far.
I use Brother black and white laser printer with after market toner cartridges from eBay .
Print around 200 pages a day.
Around 5000 pages for 37 AUD ie around 25 USD.
The paper costs more per page than the toner.
Just make sure you stay away from HP branded printers...
They are fine for documents but if you want details photo printing then inkjet I think has an edge, but for most people laser is better choice.
Honestly I'm torn on this one. I will probably buy it but from a purely philosophical standpoint. Why? Well I do have a black & white HP laser printer that I've been using with my Linux devices for years now. It just works. There are a lot of terrible printers out there with wacky firmwares pinging home to their manufacturers. Some require ink with DRM, some companion apps, etc.
But... and that's my main point, are just basic printers that work anywhere with anything. There are quite a few to the point that among peripheral printers might be one of the safest one can safely "yeah it will probably work with open system no problem" relatively confidently (still do check first).
So... yeah it's cool but in terms of openness of our entire IT ecosystem printing doesn't appear to me as the priority gap to fill.
Cool project anyway!
I haven't experienced the odor of ozone when printing at home since my HP Laserjet 4 died from water damage 18 years ago.
My current Brother laser printer (an MFC-2750DW, IIRC) is so non-stinky that I haven't thought about for a very long time.
Very few domestic / small office printers will ever hit that number, but for a ~20 year old model, it's possible yours has. The service manual suggests it's rated for 50,000 pages (as are the drum and roller), but unfortunately isn't replaceable.
Time for a new model?
(The canonical print shop smell is ozone - imagesetters produced way more than a laser printer - together with solvent from the inks and lots and lots of stale coffee. Possibly mixed with cigarette smoke, depending on just how long ago you're talking about...)
What's even the point of this landing page in this state?
It would be a lot more aspirational to figure out how to build a tank-based printer (although maybe its not possible to compete with the incumbents on price in this space)
In theory you could probably modify one of these by grabbing an HP cartridge and slapping an ink tank on top with the right sponge for transferring the ink over. Selling parts from HP printer cartridges might creep a little too close to HP's patent lawyers, though, and having users open cartridges to extract the print heads themselves sounds like a messy solution that would reduce the appeal.
I'm sure that given time, someone will 3D print an ink tank holder that will let you use cheap ink supplies through the expensive HP cartridges.
Yes, but it also means it won't be cheaper or more reliable than a regular printer. The print head is what fails most often and you'll still have to buy a new one.
TL;DR: I'm surprised this isn't a laser printer, as those are actually quite a bit easier to design and manufacture, especially if you can use a cheap, older, commonly available, remanufacturable toner cartridge.
I wonder why. Were the consumables too cheap and the printers too reliable to be commercially viable? Did color laser printers catch up in terms of print quality? Did it have some other fatal flaw?
- A single ink clog can destroy a printhead.
- partial clogs can result in ugly messes with ink smeared all over the pages and the assembly further smearing on later prints.
- the printer has to be calibrated to the specific formulation of solid ink to work properly. A bad ink batch or calibrating to the wrong formulation (or a drift in specs on the formulation) can cause clogs, print head failures, etc.
- solid ink printing massively complicates lamination if that's something you need to do (ex in an office).
Overall it's a far more unforgiving process. You can't really have aftermarket inks like you can with modern inks and even variations in the first party manufacturing process can have catastrophic effects on the print hardware.
I only used one for a few years, and never thought to laminate the pages because they didn't need it -- dye-sub wax-printed pages were already suitable for outdoor maps because the wax repelled water, and they held up where inkjet pages became a smeary mess immediately.
We definitely did wash our hands before and after loading ink blocks, I remember being cautioned about that.
Oh well. I guess my memories are better than the tech deserved. Won't be the last time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots
Every manufacturer volunteered to rob their own customers of anonymity. Even at the OS and application level (Adobe) people are being tagged with robust watermarks. In general, still no one cares. =3
It is also common for people to create urban legends rather than discuss how to actually fix legal policy failures. As previously stated, consumers implicitly gave permission though sustained inaction on industry volunteering to help track customers.
An OSS printer would be cool from a standards/driver perspective, but microfluidics are a nontrivial technology. Bloomberg also paid lobbyists >$23m to try to mandate "AI" R.A.T. installation (company associated with Palantir) on 3D printers to attempt convincing criminals to care about laws again.
It is unclear if such action is consistent with constitutional legal precedents, but it is certainly hilarious to see kids figure out the mess a prior generation creates. Best of luck, =3
Of course the details of what specific parts are purchaseable on the open market can and will change this calculus a lot.
- By rolling the paper, will it really stay flat after printing? - How easy / cheap will sourcing ink be?
* How can it can do 2-side printing ? (on a normal printer, you may print all the odd pages, turn the whole thing, and print all the even pages)
* Won't the cutter experience some wear ?
The number of steps here is enough that you could rule out everything. And anything you think is left is just something you aren’t aware of a chain that links them.
Also, if you wanted to avoid yellow dots, not sure if this is built into the cartridge or the firmware of the rest of the printer.
Now, I understand that would be hard to pull off. Maybe one could build a deskjet500 equivalent one.
Laser printers are quite complex as well, you need too many non-easy to build from scratch parts.
Maybe a dot matrix printer is possible.
I know for sure you can retrofit older electric typewriters, and those are pretty repairable.
But the heads being disposable and one day unavailable is kind of a valid concern if a new source doesn't eventually turn up.
It looks like they're using the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license so restricting commercial use which I think would run afoul of the purists definition of Freedom?
It's a cool printer, and I'd much rather have something like this!
https://notes.valdikss.org.ru/printers/#Cheap%20used%20laser...
To be less facetious though, this seems like a nice project (*), but I print so much less these days than in the past. I printed a lot of color stuff when I was in school; but these days I just settle for black/halftoning from a laser printer, for when I actually need something printed, and color on screen only.
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(*) - except perhaps for the NC restriction in the license.
> A patent as well as a design and model registration have been made to protect the technical architecture and design of Openprinter.
So, open as in OpenAI.
s/Reparaible/Repairable
Perhaps because it's irrelevant [0].
>Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
HP could stop selling ink cartridges to stores, but they'd be shooting themselves in the foot as well.
Some previous discussion on the crowdfunding:
Inkjet printer with DRM-free ink will be launched via a crowdfunding campaign (2025)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45423404
Open source AI without a source. Open source software, oh but only up to 4000 users after two years of release for people on south hemisphere. Now open source hardware but your copies of design are for noncommercial use, only our copies are not restriced.