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

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

#91

Post by Nbox9 » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

gonzo41 wrote: post #82

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…

I had a burst of creative thought, thinking about getting a typewriter and hooking up a ton of actuators to it so I could just slide it an array of a document to type out. But it'd probably move to fast or slow, jam and then there's feeding it paper. It'd probably be easier to make a nice block alphabet for a plotter and then just print your documents as biro drawings. But again, feeding paper seems like a very fiddl…

The problem isn’t building an open source printer, the problem is building a good open source printer.

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

#92

Post by gonzo41 » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

Nbox9 wrote: post #91

gonzo41 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a burst of creative thought, thinking about getting a typewriter and hooking up a ton of actuators to it so I could just slide it an array of a document to type out. But it'd probably move to fast or slow, jam and then there's feeding it paper. It'd probably be easier to make a nice block alphabet for a plotter and then just print your documents as biro drawings. But again, feeding paper seems like a very fiddl…

The problem isn’t building an open source printer, the problem is building a good open source printer.

Yeah and resolution is another issue.

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

#93

Post by kybernetikos » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

I have a multifunction A3 printer / scanner from a major manufacturer with an auto feeder and 3 other trays/inputs. It has USB input, network cable, wifi, internal tanks, fax capability, a colour touch screen....

The hardware works very well. The software is weird and inconsistent. It can do some very useful things if you access the scanning function in one, incredibly convoluted way, but not in other ways. It can scan to a network share, but you have to put the password in every time. It's frustrating because it's so good and so bad at the same time.

I would love to have an open source firmware in it.

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

#94

Post by dimitrios1 » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:45 PM UTC

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…

I'm finding myself printing out code more and more these days, highlighting it and marking it up. There's just a different part of my brain that kicks in when I am able to get tactile with something.

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

#95

Post by criddell » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:48 PM UTC

adwn wrote: post #48

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.

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.

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

#96

Post by Nbox9 » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

_def wrote: post #61

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

Ink cartridges is only a $1B global industry [0]. That isn’t a small market, but the global printing industry, with all digital content being transferred onto any 2d mediums through automatic means is probably closer to $1T. Think about every book, every magazine, every coffee mug with a funny saying, every graphic TShirt. In the world.

The ink cartridges are good money, but it’s not where the money is at.

[0] https://www.rfdtv.com/story/42630937/global-ink-cartridges-m...

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

#97

Post by Inhibit » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

I'm unsure about the statement. I've repaired many printers mechanically. The hardware is generally repairable and the mechanical parts aren't proprietary.

The software on the printers is whatever you buy. Some of them run on available print languages that you can code up your own driver for should you really want to.

And for the example cited, cartridges, Epson had offered a more expensive printer with a do whatever you want ink setup. And Brother lasers have so far accepted any carts I use without complaint.

As for hard to manufacture the entire printer is a molded plastic to reduce cost (massively) and a fabrication plant made printhead. Mass manufacture only for the huge price-break.

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

#98

Post by lpfabiani » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

_def wrote: post #61

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

Because the professional printing doesn't buy not-official ink, exactly.

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

#99

Post by Nbox9 » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

dimitrios1 wrote: post #94

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…

I'm finding myself printing out code more and more these days, highlighting it and marking it up. There's just a different part of my brain that kicks in when I am able to get tactile with something.

I’m going to make a note to try that this week.

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

#100

Post by michaelt » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

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?

The impression I get from HN comments is users of monochrome business laser printers from 2000 are the only people who are happy with their printers :)