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Apart from the nozzle why is it hard to manufacture and/or design?
Some of the documents that we previously received through FOIA suggested that all major manufacturers of color laser printers entered a secret agreement with governments to ensure that the output of those printers is forensically traceable.
Because a good 2D printer costs peanuts.
Ink delivery is likely the main challenge (although I've seen some low-res attempts), combined with the speed and precision needed for a good printer - reaching a few hundred DPI requires positioning things quite precisely. Laser printers are interesting, but then you need specialized parts like the drum that I'd expect to be difficult to produce in single quantities.
Open pen plotters are a thing, but again not typically used for normal printing duties.
Once that is said, it should be possible to work in a general-purpose open source 2d printer. The open community has achieved bigger goals. The biggest problem I can see is the entry barrier: to get a very basic printer, you have to invest thousands of time with a lot of knowledge in different areas, when a basic printer, even from the large companies, is not very expensive.
I think that one of the only chances we have for that to happen is that a company frees its designs and patents and community starts working from there.
Because a good 2D printer costs peanuts.
If there was a 2D equivalent, I'd be interested in tinkering with that, too. And yes, that would probably mean spending 5x ot 10x more than a cheap commercial printer to get a printer than underperformed said cheap commercial printer. But it would be mine, and I would understand it, and be able to mess with it. And fix it if it broke. And use weird inks with it. And so on.
Because a good 2D printer costs peanuts.
Yes but then you have to buy cartridges from the manufacturer who has the control to say there are empty when in fact they are not. It is a completely closed ecosystem. I believe customers deserve better alternatives.
But as others have mentioned, commercial printers are really cheap, especially for how complicated they are to replicate so there's not much motivation to make them.