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OpenPrinter

opentools.studio

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41–50 of 299 posts

Re: OpenPrinter

#41

Post by avianlyric »

SwellJoe wrote: post #36
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 us…

> You can't make a commercial competitor of this printer using their design

Which means it's not open source. Open source means you have the right to distribute work however you want, including commercially, provided you also provide the source under the same license terms as the original.

The second you slap a non-commercial limitation on there, it ceases to be open source.

Re: OpenPrinter

#42

Post by nerdsniper »

sunshinesnacks wrote: post #17
amenghra wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An open source all-in-one-printer would be a great device to have. For eg I would love to have the scanner include a camera. So I can get “instant scans” most of the time, and a higher res scan when needed. Maybe the camera could also notice when the person making copies or scans forgot their original and ping them?

The required super wide field of view for the camera could be tricky, without making the box really deep. Or am I not thinking about it right?

You'd probably need some basic custom lens (not crazy $$) that would distort the heck out of the image, but you could correct the shape in software. Given that GP wanted this to be the "low quality / high speed" secondary scanning option, the inevitable loss of quality would be acceptable.

Seeing chromatic aberration on a document scan would be strange, but this is basically how many document scans are created today (using phone camera + software correction). It's just the lens effects from this cheap lens would be a lot worse than what Apple/Samsung/Google can do with their super expensive to design custom lens stacks.

Re: OpenPrinter

#44

Post by saturn8601 »

tjohns wrote: post #14
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…

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…

Maybe they should have purchased a design from Canon or someone that isn't really in this market anymore. It seems like not only are they locked into a specific older technology generation (which could be ok idk) but they also risk HP just discontinuing that cartridge. It seems like the printers for this cartridge were released around late 2017 so they could deprecate earlier than they normally do. Seems like they provide 10-20 years typically. At the same time , maybe this is just meant for a small user base of nerds and maybe HP wont care.

Re: OpenPrinter

#45

Post by dinkleberg »

I really love the idea of a paper roll rather than individual sheets. Being able to print out to the size you want rather than only in pre-set sizes is quite cool.

Re: OpenPrinter

#46

Post by t-3 »

VorpalWay wrote: post #15
15155 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder how they will handle the nonsense around yellow tracking dots[1] etc. Hopefully that doesn't become a problem. What's there to handle? They just don't include them and there's no statute that requires them to.

Hm, I guess there is no law. But why would so many manufacturers include this unless there is some legal reason or other pressure on them to do so?

National security letters or old boys network or maybe just fat bribes to the right engineer. Could be a requirement for government procurement too, so not a law, just the requirement of a huge customer with deep pockets and negative price sensitivity.

Re: OpenPrinter

#48

Post by slashdave »

williadc wrote: post #37

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 reliabil…

Just bought a Brother ink tank printer (they have a whole line). Let's see how long it lasts.

Re: OpenPrinter

#49

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

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…

isn't inkjet an outdated tech by now?

Re: OpenPrinter

#50

Post by infl8ed »

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…

I noticed that previous post is from a couple of months ago, and it looks like about a week ago they posted a project update and they claim for their current prototype: "We are successfully printing in both black and full color." https://www.crowdsupply.com/open-tools/open-printer/updates/...

Of course I have no way of verifying either way. Still I do think the project looks quite interesting, I'm in the market for a printer and this is certainly the most interesting one I've seen in a while.

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