EFF's “Yellow Dots of Mystery” (2008)

throwawayaway wrote: post #3

some related and useful info: https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-d... i wonder if mono black laserjets have similar issues.

From the linked 'seeing yellow' site:

"They are present in both color printers and copiers but do not show up in pages printed in black-and-white mode."

Re: EFF's “Yellow Dots of Mystery” (2008)

#6

Post by johnchristopher » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 9:30 AM UTC

I wonder if something like that is implemented in 3D printers.

Re: EFF's “Yellow Dots of Mystery” (2008)

#7

Post by q3k » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 9:35 AM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #6

I wonder if something like that is implemented in 3D printers.

If we're talking about FDM...

Unless you're buying from a non-open-hardware company (like Makerbot, which you shouldn't anyway), you should be fine. Thhey use an all open-source software chain (ie. Slic3r -> Printrun/OctoPrint -> Marlin)

Re: EFF's “Yellow Dots of Mystery” (2008)

#8

Post by madaxe_again » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 10:46 AM UTC

Re: EFF's “Yellow Dots of Mystery” (2008)

#9

Post by throwawayaway » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 10:48 AM UTC

kghose wrote: post #4

Use FedEx Kinko's. Wear a baseball cap and sunglasses when you go in.

with your phone left behind you and having dodged any security cameras between there and where you live.

...and all you want to do is print some flyers for a bake sale.

Re: EFF's “Yellow Dots of Mystery” (2008)

#10

Post by dfox » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 11:07 AM UTC

reustle wrote: post #2

I wonder if it is this sort of thing, along with patents in the industry, that prevents open source printers from taking off.

There is nothing that prevents one from making opensource laser printer. Except the fact that the whole mechanism is decidedly non-trivial to get right. You get precision mechanics, high voltage, large resistive heating element and multimegabit serial datastreams that have to be phase locked to mechanical movement in one little box that can be bought off the shelf for <100USD. For that matter many "printer manufacturers" actually buy the whole print engine as a module from somebody else as there is not much to be gained by designing and manufacturing it in-house.