OpenPrinter

Interesting comment from last time this was posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48093670

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.

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.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots

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.

Image loading is too fancy and went on a lunch break I think.

I mean it’s about time a company makes a repairable and pro consumer printer. My god