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Ask HN: Why are there no open source 2d printers?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are there no open source 2d printers?

#231

Post by lallysingh »

Jon_Lowtek wrote: post #225
lallysingh wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How little infrastructure works they have if they had to pay for it to be 1000x overbuilt?

there probably is a middle ground. Just because i disagree with the rather radical opinion that claims it's most efficient to just barely fulfill minimum requirement and that throw-away & buy-new should be considered for civil engineering doesn't automatically mean i favor the radical extreme opposite opinion. I am just stating the very obvious problem.

I think ultimately the problem is that infra is an investment in future growth, but the decision makers aren't accountable on failure.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no open source 2d printers?

#232

Post by alanbernstein »

coldtea wrote: post #103
Nbox9 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember printing in 2000? Literally every printer was suffering from constant paper jams and other mechanical malfunctions. In 2020 a top consumer or business printer will not jam on you. The business printers in 2000 had slow processors and more ram. It was significantly bad that printing PDFs spent more time processing the file than putting toner on page. Finally, the interfacing for printers today is fanta…

> Do you remember printing in 2000? Literally every printer was suffering from constant paper jams and other mechanical malfunctions. In 2020 a top consumer or business printer will not jam on you. The business printers in 2000 had slow processors and more ram. It was significantly bad that printing PDFs spent more time processing the file than putting toner on page. All of that, including the interfacing are not rel…

I feel like you may not be familiar with how patents work in the US: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20040137855A1/en. This is a patent for "Wireless Mobile Printing", which is more specific than just "Wireless Printing". Both of these concepts are, arguably, obvious combinations of existing technology.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no open source 2d printers?

#233

Post by zdw »

payne92 wrote: post #228
zdw wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See about replacing the network card on the printer, or updating its firmware. Newer firmwares frequently support Bonjour, and have various security updates. Replaceable NIC in printers are pretty great, especially when you can buy them for 1/10th of original cost on the used market.

They stopped manufacturing the HP LaserJet 4000 over 21 years ago, and the jetdirect EIO network card (J3111A) not long after that. If there is a newer network card or firmware that supports this printer, I’d love to hear about it.

The 620n and 635n EIO cards support Bonjour: https://h10057.www1.hp.com/ecomcat/hpcatalog/specs/provision... and http://www.hp.com/ecomcat/hpcatalog/specs/provisioner/99/J79...

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no open source 2d printers?

#234

Post by rmah »

criddell wrote: post #95
adwn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the main argument: It would take a lot of money and cross-domain knowledge to design and build a passable printer from scratch. Contrast that with software, where all you need is time and a low to medium power computer. In fact, compared to software open source , all other open source engineering is non-existent (relative to OSS, not in absolute terms).

Why would you design one from scratch? The hardware out there is excellent and inexpensive. Start with that and write the firmware in a similar way that the Magic Lantern group did for cameras.

The problem is not the design or the firmware. The problem is the production of the actual physical printer. Building real things is not like compiling software. Nothing happens exactly the same every time. The minimal exposure I had to manufacturing has shown me that even simple manufacturing steps are infuriatingly difficult to get consistent.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no open source 2d printers?

#235

Post by Spooky23 »

bb611 wrote: post #147
Nbox9 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember printing in 2000? Literally every printer was suffering from constant paper jams and other mechanical malfunctions. In 2020 a top consumer or business printer will not jam on you. The business printers in 2000 had slow processors and more ram. It was significantly bad that printing PDFs spent more time processing the file than putting toner on page. Finally, the interfacing for printers today is fanta…

> In 2020 a top consumer or business printer will not jam on you. That's just not accurate. I've personally dealt with truly unreasonable numbers of service calls for high end business models over the last 8 years, jams aren't frequent but they are definitely not rare.

Usually in big companies that’s more about the garbage recycled paper that procurement idiots like to buy.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no open source 2d printers?

#236

Post by andrewflnr »

marketingPro wrote: post #129
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... because the channels through which the ink is propelled are only microns wide, and the ink volumes which are distributed per drop are in the picoliter range which requires a complex piezo-electric control system.

If this topic turns out to be the start of a FOSS, I'll join as a (senior) design engineer. Find one that doesn't have a patent and reverse engineer it. I imagine the first/original control system was extremely difficult to develop. But since the technology already exists you can reverse engineer it. After that, you pay a supplier to make parts. In my experience, these suppliers will end up redesigning to match bette…

Do you think I need to be an HN mod to downvote you? I don't.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no open source 2d printers?

#238

Post by coldtea »

jancsika wrote: post #117
coldtea wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you remember printing in 2000? Literally every printer was suffering from constant paper jams and other mechanical malfunctions. In 2020 a top consumer or business printer will not jam on you. The business printers in 2000 had slow processors and more ram. It was significantly bad that printing PDFs spent more time processing the file than putting toner on page. All of that, including the interfacing are not rel…

Are you stating your last two sentences as the result of researching these issues? Because as a layperson, I would not have thought a company could get a patent on clicking a button to purchase an item online.

>Are you stating your last two sentences as the result of researching these issues?

Do you really believe "researching" is needed?

Like, in every other domain and product category, a company can slap a faster processor and more RAM to the next iteration - as they do -, but this is somehow prevented in printers by patents?

I'd say the extraordinary claim that needs extraordinary evidence is not mine...

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no open source 2d printers?

#239

Post by coldtea »

ska wrote: post #176
coldtea wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you remember printing in 2000? Literally every printer was suffering from constant paper jams and other mechanical malfunctions. In 2020 a top consumer or business printer will not jam on you. The business printers in 2000 had slow processors and more ram. It was significantly bad that printing PDFs spent more time processing the file than putting toner on page. All of that, including the interfacing are not rel…

>> as suffering from constant paper jams and other mechanical malfunctions. > All of that, including the interfacing are not related to patents. This seems like a pretty strong statement, can you elaborate as to why solving paper jams wouldn't involve patented IP ?

The paper jam might be. The rest (speed of processor, amount of ram, interface used) certainly aren't.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no open source 2d printers?

#240

Post by bayindirh »

Nbox9 wrote: post #90
kevstev wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of patents? I had tank of an HP laserjet 3 in the 90s, and patent life is 20 years. For the basic functionality, they should all be expired at this point, and the limiting factor at the time was the high cost of memory and compute. Shouldn't anything relevant have expired years ago? The first laserjet came out in 1984 it seems. Prices have come down, but I haven't seen any real innovation in printers (not t…

Do you remember printing in 2000? Literally every printer was suffering from constant paper jams and other mechanical malfunctions. In 2020 a top consumer or business printer will not jam on you. The business printers in 2000 had slow processors and more ram. It was significantly bad that printing PDFs spent more time processing the file than putting toner on page. Finally, the interfacing for printers today is fanta…

> Do you remember printing in 2000...

Yes, and?

> Literally every printer was suffering from constant paper jams and other mechanical malfunctions.

No. I have gone through 7 personal printers and used countless business printers. Total number of jams I've cleared from my personal printers are probably less than 10 in 20+ years.

I've cleared much more paper jams from top of the line printers regardless of their build year. Reliability of a business printer is a function of its maintenance quality it seems.

My most stubborn printer wouldn't feed some papers since they're too smooth but, it started to happen after 7 years and its feed rollers were dry and worn down at that time.

One of my HP printers started to lose cartridge calibration, made funny noises and gave strange error messages after 6 years. Looks like I've worn down its internals. It was a "disposable" model it seems. I've probably used it three times its expected lifetime.

> The only thing that was better about printing in 2000 is that back then printing was more useful

It's still very useful at a personal scale. I've also cut back my printing to save the trees but, reading articles, academic stuff and a good old technical documentation is vastly better on paper, hands down.

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