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I worked for a while in the R&D department of HP printer division. As @jacquesm said, good 2D printer costs peanuts. The amount of R&D in color quality, speed a

I worked for a while in the R&D department of HP printer division. As @jacquesm said, good 2D printer costs peanuts. The amount of R&D in color quality, speed and other parameters is huge. There were a lot of teams involved: mechanical, electrical, software, chemical... And because of that investment, there are thousands of patents that the big players are continuously paying each other for. It's a very old market with a lot of legacy. For most of us, a printer is something for home photos, some documents, and so, but that's only a little part of the cake: the money is in professional printing, ads, designers, etc. 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.

teknopaul 6y ago
bit of a non-argument this. Existence of cheap alternatives misses the point of opensource, its not about cost. ref: free as in beer vs free as in speech.
- ceceron 6y ago
  Sure, but money is a very effective motivational power. If something is expensive, there is a higher need to produce an alternative.
- adwn 6y ago
  I think you're missing the main argument: It would take a lot of money and cross-domain knowledge to design and build a passable printer from scratch. Contrast that with software, where all you need is time and a low to medium power computer. In fact, compared to software open source, all other open source engineering is non-existent (relative to OSS, not in absolute terms).
  - criddell 6y ago
    Why would you design one from scratch? The hardware out there is excellent and inexpensive. Start with that and write the firmware in a similar way that the Magic Lantern group did for cameras.
    - adwn 6y ago
      > Why would you design one from scratch? The hardware out there is excellent and inexpensive. I thought the discussion was about open source printers, not about open source printer firmware? Sure, you could probably reverse engineer the interface to the actuators and sensors, which would allow you to write open source drivers, but you'd still be stuck with the printer manufacturer's cartridges.
    - bgorman 6y ago
      Embedded systems generally do not allow you to flash custom firmware to them these days, especially for printers as there is money at stake (you could write firmware to support non-vendors Ink/Toner cartridges), or to enable disabled features. In addition printers contain custom specific IP blocks related to everything from ethernet to scan and print functionality. It is just not feasible for someone to be able to write custom firmware for a printer without access to the hardware documentation for these devices. More sophisticated printers even have multiple CPUs for doing various tasks.
    - rmah 6y ago
      The problem is not the design or the firmware. The problem is the production of the actual physical printer. Building real things is not like compiling software. Nothing happens exactly the same every time. The minimal exposure I had to manufacturing has shown me that even simple manufacturing steps are infuriatingly difficult to get consistent.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  99% of FOSS consumers only care about free beer, hence the uptake on MIT like licenses.
  - Fnoord 6y ago
    Where did you derive that number from?
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      Gut feeling from what gets discussed over here and other channels when someone posts news about commercial tools or GPL dual licensed based stuff. Hordes of complains about paying for something, followed by MIT like licenses based clones.
    - mickael-kerjean 6y ago
      Not parent but if 1% of the people who use my FOSS software [1] did pay for it, I'd be making a pretty good salary. I'm just a datapoint but my contributions don't cover the server cost alone and out of the many companies who did contact me, I've refused almost all of them as I'd be making more money flipping burgers than what they were willing to offer considering the time involvement [1] https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash
      - slow_donkey 6y ago
        I was just looking for an s3 browser. Will give this a whirl
      - jakeva 6y ago
        I'm confused, would you be making a pretty good salary or would you be making more money flipping burgers?
  - carlhjerpe 6y ago
    If you remove FOSS from the sentence I believe you more.
- kiba 6y ago
  It's a matter of ROI. There isn't much return or expertise on building an open source 2D printer, as opposed to 3D printers.
_def 6y ago
> the money is in professional printing, ads, designers, etc. And ink cartridges
- Nbox9 6y ago
  Ink cartridges is only a $1B global industry [0]. That isn’t a small market, but the global printing industry, with all digital content being transferred onto any 2d mediums through automatic means is probably closer to $1T. Think about every book, every magazine, every coffee mug with a funny saying, every graphic TShirt. In the world. The ink cartridges are good money, but it’s not where the money is at. [0] https://www.rfdtv.com/story/42630937/global-ink-cartridges-market-2020-industry-growth-factor-top-manufacturers-and-indepth-study-of-market-share-size-price-and-developments https://www.rfdtv.com/story/42630937/global-ink-cartridges-m...
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    That actually upsets me more: we're beset by stupid DRM and price-gouging on ink, and it's not even that profitable?
    - floatboth 6y ago
      Are we anymore? I've been to an electronics store recently, most printers on display were ink tank models. Even HP ones!
  - dr_orpheus 6y ago
    It's not the main source of revenue, but for personal printing most of the money comes from selling ink cartridges. My dad used to work for a printer company and he said that on personal printer sales they usually broke even or sometimes sold at a loss. But all of that was made up with the profit margin on ink cartridge sales.
- lpfabiani 6y ago
  Because the professional printing doesn't buy not-official ink, exactly.
formerly_proven 6y ago
There are lots of DIY plotters, but printers are just way more complicated.
gonzo41 6y ago
I had a burst of creative thought, thinking about getting a typewriter and hooking up a ton of actuators to it so I could just slide it an array of a document to type out. But it'd probably move to fast or slow, jam and then there's feeding it paper. It'd probably be easier to make a nice block alphabet for a plotter and then just print your documents as biro drawings. But again, feeding paper seems like a very fiddly problem.
- adyer07 6y ago
  You could look into the IBM Selectric - the typing element is a ball so it can't jam, and it's actuated by little cables that might be hackable. Feed it paper off of a roll, and you have your jam-free, continuous printing solution :)
  - drewzero1 6y ago
    A few years ago I took apart my Correcting Selectric III with exactly this aim. IIRC there are around six levers which can be actuated in different combinations to select and imprint all of the symbols on the type ball. I had a lot of fun selecting them by hand to try to map all of the combinations. IBM must have had this use in mind because they actually made a variation of the Selectric design that could be used as a serial terminal. We have one in storage at work but I think the mechanism is seized. Wikipedia has a surprisingly long section about modifying the Selectric to work as a computer terminal[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter#Use_as_a_computer_terminal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter#Use_a...
  - geocrasher 6y ago
    https://hackaday.com/2012/06/13/turning-an-ibm-selectric-into-a-printer/ https://hackaday.com/2012/06/13/turning-an-ibm-selectric-int...
- Nbox9 6y ago
  The problem isn’t building an open source printer, the problem is building a good open source printer.
kevstev 6y ago
What kind of patents? I had tank of an HP laserjet 3 in the 90s, and patent life is 20 years. For the basic functionality, they should all be expired at this point, and the limiting factor at the time was the high cost of memory and compute. Shouldn't anything relevant have expired years ago? The first laserjet came out in 1984 it seems. Prices have come down, but I haven't seen any real innovation in printers (not that I really need any- I just want them to print)- since 2000.
- Nbox9 6y ago
  Do you remember printing in 2000? Literally every printer was suffering from constant paper jams and other mechanical malfunctions. In 2020 a top consumer or business printer will not jam on you. The business printers in 2000 had slow processors and more ram. It was significantly bad that printing PDFs spent more time processing the file than putting toner on page. Finally, the interfacing for printers today is fantastic. I know this isn’t about toner on page, but having wifi connection, an LCD touchscreen interface, and them generally being a little smaller has made the experience better. The only thing that was better about printing in 2000 is that back then printing was more useful because so many people wanted paper copies.
  - dimitrios1 6y ago
    I'm finding myself printing out code more and more these days, highlighting it and marking it up. There's just a different part of my brain that kicks in when I am able to get tactile with something.
    - Nbox9 6y ago
      I’m going to make a note to try that this week.
      - jaywalk 6y ago
        Make sure you print that note out.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

teknopaul 6y ago

bit of a non-argument this. Existence of cheap alternatives misses the point of opensource, its not about cost. ref: free as in beer vs free as in speech.

ceceron 6y ago
Sure, but money is a very effective motivational power. If something is expensive, there is a higher need to produce an alternative.
adwn 6y ago
I think you're missing the main argument: It would take a lot of money and cross-domain knowledge to design and build a passable printer from scratch. Contrast that with software, where all you need is time and a low to medium power computer. In fact, compared to software open source, all other open source engineering is non-existent (relative to OSS, not in absolute terms).
- criddell 6y ago
  Why would you design one from scratch? The hardware out there is excellent and inexpensive. Start with that and write the firmware in a similar way that the Magic Lantern group did for cameras.
  - adwn 6y ago
    > Why would you design one from scratch? The hardware out there is excellent and inexpensive. I thought the discussion was about open source printers, not about open source printer firmware? Sure, you could probably reverse engineer the interface to the actuators and sensors, which would allow you to write open source drivers, but you'd still be stuck with the printer manufacturer's cartridges.
  - bgorman 6y ago
    Embedded systems generally do not allow you to flash custom firmware to them these days, especially for printers as there is money at stake (you could write firmware to support non-vendors Ink/Toner cartridges), or to enable disabled features. In addition printers contain custom specific IP blocks related to everything from ethernet to scan and print functionality. It is just not feasible for someone to be able to write custom firmware for a printer without access to the hardware documentation for these devices. More sophisticated printers even have multiple CPUs for doing various tasks.
  - rmah 6y ago
    The problem is not the design or the firmware. The problem is the production of the actual physical printer. Building real things is not like compiling software. Nothing happens exactly the same every time. The minimal exposure I had to manufacturing has shown me that even simple manufacturing steps are infuriatingly difficult to get consistent.
pjmlp 6y ago
99% of FOSS consumers only care about free beer, hence the uptake on MIT like licenses.
- Fnoord 6y ago
  Where did you derive that number from?
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Gut feeling from what gets discussed over here and other channels when someone posts news about commercial tools or GPL dual licensed based stuff. Hordes of complains about paying for something, followed by MIT like licenses based clones.
  - mickael-kerjean 6y ago
    Not parent but if 1% of the people who use my FOSS software [1] did pay for it, I'd be making a pretty good salary. I'm just a datapoint but my contributions don't cover the server cost alone and out of the many companies who did contact me, I've refused almost all of them as I'd be making more money flipping burgers than what they were willing to offer considering the time involvement [1] https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash
    - slow_donkey 6y ago
      I was just looking for an s3 browser. Will give this a whirl
    - jakeva 6y ago
      I'm confused, would you be making a pretty good salary or would you be making more money flipping burgers?
- carlhjerpe 6y ago
  If you remove FOSS from the sentence I believe you more.
kiba 6y ago
It's a matter of ROI. There isn't much return or expertise on building an open source 2D printer, as opposed to 3D printers.

_def 6y ago

> the money is in professional printing, ads, designers, etc. And ink cartridges

Nbox9 6y ago
Ink cartridges is only a $1B global industry [0]. That isn’t a small market, but the global printing industry, with all digital content being transferred onto any 2d mediums through automatic means is probably closer to $1T. Think about every book, every magazine, every coffee mug with a funny saying, every graphic TShirt. In the world. The ink cartridges are good money, but it’s not where the money is at. [0] https://www.rfdtv.com/story/42630937/global-ink-cartridges-market-2020-industry-growth-factor-top-manufacturers-and-indepth-study-of-market-share-size-price-and-developments https://www.rfdtv.com/story/42630937/global-ink-cartridges-m...
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  That actually upsets me more: we're beset by stupid DRM and price-gouging on ink, and it's not even that profitable?
  - floatboth 6y ago
    Are we anymore? I've been to an electronics store recently, most printers on display were ink tank models. Even HP ones!
- dr_orpheus 6y ago
  It's not the main source of revenue, but for personal printing most of the money comes from selling ink cartridges. My dad used to work for a printer company and he said that on personal printer sales they usually broke even or sometimes sold at a loss. But all of that was made up with the profit margin on ink cartridge sales.
lpfabiani 6y ago
Because the professional printing doesn't buy not-official ink, exactly.

formerly_proven 6y ago

There are lots of DIY plotters, but printers are just way more complicated.

gonzo41 6y ago

I had a burst of creative thought, thinking about getting a typewriter and hooking up a ton of actuators to it so I could just slide it an array of a document to type out. But it'd probably move to fast or slow, jam and then there's feeding it paper. It'd probably be easier to make a nice block alphabet for a plotter and then just print your documents as biro drawings. But again, feeding paper seems like a very fiddly problem.

adyer07 6y ago
You could look into the IBM Selectric - the typing element is a ball so it can't jam, and it's actuated by little cables that might be hackable. Feed it paper off of a roll, and you have your jam-free, continuous printing solution :)
- drewzero1 6y ago
  A few years ago I took apart my Correcting Selectric III with exactly this aim. IIRC there are around six levers which can be actuated in different combinations to select and imprint all of the symbols on the type ball. I had a lot of fun selecting them by hand to try to map all of the combinations. IBM must have had this use in mind because they actually made a variation of the Selectric design that could be used as a serial terminal. We have one in storage at work but I think the mechanism is seized. Wikipedia has a surprisingly long section about modifying the Selectric to work as a computer terminal[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter#Use_as_a_computer_terminal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter#Use_a...
- geocrasher 6y ago
  https://hackaday.com/2012/06/13/turning-an-ibm-selectric-into-a-printer/ https://hackaday.com/2012/06/13/turning-an-ibm-selectric-int...
Nbox9 6y ago
The problem isn’t building an open source printer, the problem is building a good open source printer.

kevstev 6y ago

What kind of patents? I had tank of an HP laserjet 3 in the 90s, and patent life is 20 years. For the basic functionality, they should all be expired at this point, and the limiting factor at the time was the high cost of memory and compute. Shouldn't anything relevant have expired years ago? The first laserjet came out in 1984 it seems. Prices have come down, but I haven't seen any real innovation in printers (not that I really need any- I just want them to print)- since 2000.

Nbox9 6y ago
Do you remember printing in 2000? Literally every printer was suffering from constant paper jams and other mechanical malfunctions. In 2020 a top consumer or business printer will not jam on you. The business printers in 2000 had slow processors and more ram. It was significantly bad that printing PDFs spent more time processing the file than putting toner on page. Finally, the interfacing for printers today is fantastic. I know this isn’t about toner on page, but having wifi connection, an LCD touchscreen interface, and them generally being a little smaller has made the experience better. The only thing that was better about printing in 2000 is that back then printing was more useful because so many people wanted paper copies.
- dimitrios1 6y ago
  I'm finding myself printing out code more and more these days, highlighting it and marking it up. There's just a different part of my brain that kicks in when I am able to get tactile with something.
  - Nbox9 6y ago
    I’m going to make a note to try that this week.
    - jaywalk 6y ago
      Make sure you print that note out.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]