Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OpenPrinter

opentools.studio

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 299 posts

Re: OpenPrinter

#141

Post by utopiah »

I follow this project thanks to CrowdSupply from which I regularly buy open hardware.

Honestly I'm torn on this one. I will probably buy it but from a purely philosophical standpoint. Why? Well I do have a black & white HP laser printer that I've been using with my Linux devices for years now. It just works. There are a lot of terrible printers out there with wacky firmwares pinging home to their manufacturers. Some require ink with DRM, some companion apps, etc.

But... and that's my main point, are just basic printers that work anywhere with anything. There are quite a few to the point that among peripheral printers might be one of the safest one can safely "yeah it will probably work with open system no problem" relatively confidently (still do check first).

So... yeah it's cool but in terms of openness of our entire IT ecosystem printing doesn't appear to me as the priority gap to fill.

Cool project anyway!

Re: OpenPrinter

#142

Post by igoose1 »

bArray wrote: post #119

> With Openprinter, you are free to choose between standard sheets or a roll of versatile paper. A few other comments have concentrated on the printer head and ink cartridge, but the roll vs sheets interests me. Manipulating sheets of paper is actually quite a difficult problem to solve - and there is only a demonstration of paper placement. Loading page after page is actually really not easy at all. There is no exam…

> specifics of the Pi variant (i.e. RAM) are not mentioned

I agree with the rest but Pi Zero W is a specific machine with 512 MB RAM:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-w/

It's also the one everyone can buy online for $19, not Pi Zero 2 W (always out of stock)

Re: OpenPrinter

#143

Post by cromka »

happymellon wrote: post #138
taneq wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A colour laser A4 multifunction is only a few hundred bucks these days, five years ago I’d have agreed with you but it might be worth re-evaluating.

I've reevaluated. Still not worth it. My Brother is hitting 10 years now, and I'm trying to think of many scenarios where I really needed to print colour at home.

I don't think this was a mono vs color argument but rather ink color vs laser color.

Re: OpenPrinter

#144

Post by Gigachad »

abustamam wrote: post #133
znhll wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think a single one ever required any serious repairs beyond replacing consumables I think your experience has been an outlier. I've had several printers from different brands also, and have had some that last a long time, and still print with decent quality even with off-brand ink/toner. However, quite a lot have also failed due to bad capacitors, bad power modules, or the printer or it's firmware just refu…

I owned a Brother inkjet for some time. I'd print maybe a few times a year. But it seemed like every time I needed to print, the printer was out of ink. Granted I used an ink service (ie not official brother ink) but still where the heck was the ink going? I've since switched to a Brother LaserJet and I'm still on the starter toner after a couple of years.

An inkjet printer has to be used at least monthly if not more often. If you left it plugged in, the printer was likely squirting ink in to a waste tank to prevent the nozzles from drying out and ruining the printer.

Laser toner can sit unused without drying out (it's dry powder already).

Re: OpenPrinter

#146

Post by etdznots »

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…

Lol then 3D printing must be space technology that only the most advanced materials labs in the world can achieve, yeah inkjet is not simple, but it’s also not magic,

Re: OpenPrinter

#147

Post by numpad0 »

golem14 wrote: post #80

I was hoping to see a printer that say a prepper could build from scratch. This design 100% depends on commercial print cartridges containing the actual print-head. Once that clogs, you need to get another one, good luck getting one once production has stopped. Also, if you wanted to avoid yellow dots, not sure if this is built into the cartridge or the firmware of the rest of the printer. Now, I understand that woul…

I had thought about a post-apocalyptic prepper printer once, my conclusion was that you can just have a fax machine and a laptop. They're considered thoroughly obsolete, and almost free to take in used markets as well.

Re: OpenPrinter

#148

Post by VladVladikoff »

utopiah wrote: post #141

I follow this project thanks to CrowdSupply from which I regularly buy open hardware. Honestly I'm torn on this one. I will probably buy it but from a purely philosophical standpoint. Why? Well I do have a black & white HP laser printer that I've been using with my Linux devices for years now. It just works. There are a lot of terrible printers out there with wacky firmwares pinging home to their manufacturers. Some…

What if I want a printer that won’t print traceable dots on everything I print?

Re: OpenPrinter

#149

Post by userbinator »

zczc wrote: post #20
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…

From the specs: Compatible cartridges HP 63 and HP 63 XL (US) HP 302 and HP 302 XL (Europe) HP 803 and HP 803 XL (Asia) So they just use HP inkjet technology. That makes it less open-source, but even "open source" parts are going to be under non-commercial license (CC BY-NC-SA) anyway.

I suspect it's because the protocol for driving those cartridges is known and others have used them:

https://spritesmods.com/?art=magicbrush

https://spritesmods.com/?art=inker

Post reply on HN