From their FAQ:
> Open Printer is distributed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
The non-commercial clause makes it non-open by the commonly accepted term of "open" in this context.
OpenPrinter
151–160 of 299 posts
Re: OpenPrinter
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have any recommendations for models or what should i look out for ? My mom wanted a printer for her birthday and it's been a few months without any success when it comes to selecting the right model
I would highly recommend getting a laser, especially if she isn't doing a huge amount of printing. You can leave them forever without printing and they'll just spin up and work in an instant. Both B+W and color ones are really decently priced these days.
I want to second this: Unregular use is compelling use case for a laser printer.
Re: OpenPrinter
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
> even "open source" parts are going to be under non-commercial license (CC BY-NC-SA) anyway You're saying this as if it is a bad thing? I absolutely welcome this decision by the authors!
Why? Restricting it in this way doesn't make sense to me. If we have a common design them surely we want people to be able to build their own, or buy a prebuilt?
Why is the CC BY-NC-SA stopping me to build my own?
Re: OpenPrinter
#154I 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…
It's interesting how that has changed. Printing used to soak up a big part of corporate IT's time and budget. It was generally thought of as the most annoying part of the job.
Re: OpenPrinter
#155I 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?
Use a monochrome laser printer for your ransom notes.
Re: OpenPrinter
#156Laser printers are so much more economical.
I use Brother black and white laser printer with after market toner cartridges from eBay .
Print around 200 pages a day.
Around 5000 pages for 37 AUD ie around 25 USD.
The paper costs more per page than the toner.
Just make sure you stay away from HP branded printers...
Re: OpenPrinter
#157Interesting 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 certainly don't have deep knowledge in this area but my understanding is that the cartridge is basically a cavity with a small hole at the bottom and a piezo electric element at the top to sputter liquid down. The tolerances are tight but considering how advanced manufacturing is, I would imagine someone competent could design and prototype it with the tools and manufacturing ecosystem that's available now.
There's at least one project that has tried to design an actual DIY/open-source inkjet printer [0], along with inkjet print heads [1].
The ink most likely need some special sauce? But I imagine there's many organizations that can specialize in making the ink so that it can be treated close to a commodity. If not, maybe this can also be engineered?
Re: OpenPrinter
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if I want a printer that won’t print traceable dots on everything I print?
Use a monochrome laser printer for your ransom notes.
In all honesty for years I had one in my small home office, and every time I printed something I could smell it in the room afterwards for an hour, sometimes even getting headaches from this. Switched to inkjet a few years ago and will never look back.
Re: OpenPrinter
#159HP will simply prevent them from buying their head + cartridge bundle. By legal or by controlling more strictly bulk purchases of replacement parts.
Re: OpenPrinter
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah conceptually this excites me but I decided color printing wasn't worth it at home years ago and haven't regretted it.
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'd have to buy a printer tho. The one I have has done its job for a decade and I think I've bought a grand total of one offbrand toner cartridge in that time.