Ask HN: Why are there no open source 2d printers? • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by _def » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 12:47 PM UTC

lpfabiani wrote: post #7

I worked for a while in the R&D department of HP printer division. As @jacquesm said, good 2D printer costs peanuts. The amount of R&D in color quality, speed and other parameters is huge. There were a lot of teams involved: mechanical, electrical, software, chemical... And because of that investment, there are thousands of patents that the big players are continuously paying each other for. It's a very old market wi…

> the money is in professional printing, ads, designers, etc.

And ink cartridges

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

#62

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 12:49 PM UTC

wegs wrote: post #33

detaro wrote: post #6

Printers are cheap and widely available, which leaves a DIY printer which is going to be slower, more error-prone and more expensive as a very niche idea. There is a clear benefit to buying or building an open hobby 3D printer, whereas that's harder to argue for a 2D one - while there is a lot of crap around, there's enough workable choices, aftermarket inks/toner works, you likely won't be modifying/tuning a 2D prin…

I don't think this is quite right. An open source 2d printer would allow for a lot of things commercial printers don't allow for. For example, I'd like to be able to print on things which are not paper. If I had an inkjet head mounted on something, there's a ton I could do with it, from modifying it to print directly on fabric, to integrating it with other fabrication technologies to make decorated objects. Even a CN…

[deleted]

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

#63

Post by fogihujy » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 12:51 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #30

sparkling wrote: post #19

Here is a business idea: the printer that just works. Requirements: - laser printer that works with non-proprietary toners - USB plug & play on all major operating systems - Network printing via WiFi and ethernet - No 2GB bloatware installation required, i dont want your shitty photo management software, just give me the driver - Replaceable parts

I bought an HP3600N about 15 years ago for something like $700. I’m not 100% sure if it has USB because it hangs off my network (which then Ubiquiti devices provide WiFi). It’s worked reliably and 3rd party toner is readily available and works well. If a major component wore out or failed, it would probably be cheaper to replace the unit than the part, but parts are technically available. I’ve had an excellent networ…

Yep, older printers are the best bet. I have an old laser that simply just works (it's connected with a parallell cable, though). Consumables are readily available, and many, many older printers support ESC/P and works with any operating system newer than Amiga OS 2.0.

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

#64

Post by Fnoord » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 12:55 PM UTC

ent wrote: post #10

There's at least this: https://hackaday.io/project/167446-diy-inkjet-printer But as others have mentioned, commercial printers are really cheap, especially for how complicated they are to replicate so there's not much motivation to make them.

The printers are cheap (if you also need a scanner price is going up a little). The ink isn't cheap though, its artificially high, and all the major printer manufacturers actively hamper your ability to go for a non-branded ink version. Cause that is where their profit margins lie.

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

#65

Post by sparkling » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 12:55 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #42

minot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brother is probably your best bet.

Pick a Brother that has all of the following features: BR/Script (their PostScript emulation) ethernet duplex And you will be fairly happy. If any of those are missing, you're buying an inferior line.

Thanks, i'll look into it.

I currently have a Samsung laser toner (M2026W). I bought it because its farily compact and blends in to my little home office corner in the living room. The duplex machines tend to be a bit larger, a pitty.

Printing - when it works - is pretty good, just the WiFi is extremly unreliable and i end up having to re-configure the WiFi from scratch by connecting via USB and using some proprietary Samsung bloatware. Horrible.

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

#66

Post by wbl » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 12:59 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #36

I wish that the intelligence in printers would migrate back to the computer. Having printers with their own complex formats (PCL, PostScript, etc.) only makes them inscrutable and lends itself to proprietary competing formats and printouts which never gets quite right. I think the original NeXT machine was on the right track with their simple bitmap-only laser printer, where the PostScript processing was done on the…

This has already happened. The printer under my desk has crap drivers that don't properly handle ligatures leading to the printer being unusable. A certified native Postscript printer would never have this problem.

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

#67

Post by miahi » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:00 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #47

detaro wrote: post #6

Printers are cheap and widely available, which leaves a DIY printer which is going to be slower, more error-prone and more expensive as a very niche idea. There is a clear benefit to buying or building an open hobby 3D printer, whereas that's harder to argue for a 2D one - while there is a lot of crap around, there's enough workable choices, aftermarket inks/toner works, you likely won't be modifying/tuning a 2D prin…

How about laser engraving tech? Can a laser engraver be tight focused to 300 dpi and power set (or sensed) to just make a mark on white paper? Does the positioning accuracy also need to be improved to get that 300 dpi? You'd never run out of toner at least. Edit, answered at least one question: yes engravers do 500 dpi routinely. Here's one: https://www.troteclaser.com/en-us/knowledge/tips-for-laser-u...

I would not consider an engraver for which you have to call to ask the price as "routine". From what I could find, the cheapest trotec is $16k second hand on ebay (and there is another from their cheap line for $56k second hand). You can hire somebody to handwrite everything you need for that kind of money.

Also, high power lasers are consumables.

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

#68

Post by lillecarl » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:04 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #49

teknopaul wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bit of a non-argument this. Existence of cheap alternatives misses the point of opensource, its not about cost. ref: free as in beer vs free as in speech.

99% of FOSS consumers only care about free beer, hence the uptake on MIT like licenses.

If you remove FOSS from the sentence I believe you more.

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

#69

Post by spicybright » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

skocznymroczny wrote: post #45

I think the reason is open source communities are more attracted towards tinkering and experimental technologies, and 3D print is much more interesting than 2D printing. 3D printing always has that idea of a manufacturing revolution behind it, 2D printing was a revolution centuries ago and it's a boring technology now.

Yup. Best case scenario after spending tons of hours and money building a decent open source printer, is you match the abilities of a $50 off the shelf printer you can buy right now.

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

#70

Post by aconst » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:08 PM UTC

colinb wrote: post #14

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also wouldn't underestimate the challenge of moving paper. I once spoke to someone who worked for Kodak (or a similar company - it was a long time ago) who said that they acquired another printer company purely because their paper moving technology was excellent and it would have taken years to develop an equivalent quality of engineering internally. This was before the present day race to the bottom in the printer…

If you haven't read it already, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/why-paper-jams... is a lot of fun.

A bit more than ten years ago I worked for Ricoh on an embedded software that was reporting the state of printer. Had a lot of fun trying to fold papers in different ways to try to trigger jams at different place of the printer to test that we were reporting jams accurately :)