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OpenPrinter

opentools.studio

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Re: OpenPrinter

#31

Post by ldoughty »

pbronez wrote: post #23
tjohns wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.

Re: OpenPrinter

#32

Post by cwillu »

einpoklum wrote: post #29
ssddanbrown wrote: post #18

> Open Printer is distributed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. So not open source.

The license doesn't apply to the things you print with it. Are you miffed by the restriction on you selling derivative open printers?

Yes, because that's the thing that makes it open and able to survive the death or corruption of the entity holding the copyright.

Re: OpenPrinter

#33

Post by cwillu »

exmadscientist wrote: post #12

I talked a bit about this years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37007815 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.

Inkjet cartridges often contain the print heads; toner cartridges still need a fuser roll and imaging head to do anything.

Re: OpenPrinter

#34

Post by jboy55 »

drum55 wrote: post #7
HelloUsername wrote: post #2

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…

That's why this is just using off the shelf cartridges with commercial heads.

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.

Re: OpenPrinter

#35

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

einpoklum wrote: post #29
ssddanbrown wrote: post #18

> Open Printer is distributed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. So not open source.

The license doesn't apply to the things you print with it. Are you miffed by the restriction on you selling derivative open printers?

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.

Re: OpenPrinter

#36

Post by SwellJoe »

esskay wrote: post #21

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 va…

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.

Re: OpenPrinter

#37

Post by williadc »

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?

Re: OpenPrinter

#40

Post by SwellJoe »

exmadscientist wrote: post #12

I talked a bit about this years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37007815 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.

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.
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