3 ms·

I very much doubt it would be very popular, unless it also somehow would manage to be extremely cheap. If it's not extremely cheap, there is enough proprietary

by detaro 4y ago

I very much doubt it would be very popular, unless it also somehow would manage to be extremely cheap. If it's not extremely cheap, there is enough proprietary competition that also works just fine in general, and a usefully open design (i.e. one that's indeed reproducible etc) would probably be even more expensive. (The same with a lot of hardware: lots of people say having an open version is very important ... until it comes to making any compromise when actually buying one)

xypage 4y ago
The trick is that an open hardware printer would likely have much cheaper cartridges, and typically people spend much much more on the ink than the printer. So even if the printer comes out as more expensive they can price gouge less on ink and still come out as the economical choice
- detaro 4y ago
  People that buy printers for printing a lot already optimize for that though, and thus buy printers with cheap ink/toner. And inks and their formulation are a big hurdle for a good open design: Either you pick some off-the-shelf vendor ink at whatever that costs, or you now also need to specify and enable ink production.
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    Most people would be happy with black and white printer for home and I don't think ink formulation is that much a hurdle in that particular context. Home printing is mostly driven by: - children asking for coloring pages to their parents - quickly copying/printing documents for admin stuff Both do not need color. Any time a professionnal and colored output is needed, most people turn to professionnal copy/printing services.
    - detaro 4y ago
      So the target to beat is a ~100$ laser printer with a ~$0.04 per page materials cost then.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      Most people would save money by sending they print to a nearby store and paying $.20/page. Sure in theory the printer they have at home is much cheaper, but for the amount they print vs the life of a printer in reality their printer is much more expensive. Plus they can choose color (extra cost), photo quality (much higher cost, but quality they can't get at home) when they want it.
RobotToaster 4y ago
Open source designs can end up extremely cheap, when dozens of Chinese companies start manufacturing them. Exactly that happened with 3d printers.
snvzz 4y ago
>unless it also somehow would manage to be extremely cheap. It doesn't have to be cheap. It needs to be durable and easy to repair (e.g. by being modular, and largely 3d-printable). It needs to use standards (IPP, postscript and so on) and thus not require specialized drivers. It needs to be able to run on cheap and easy to refill/replace cartridges, be it ink or toner. Hell, I'd even take ink tape and dot pin. Just no DRM bullshit to deal with.
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  If it's solely printing ASCII text, an open source daisy wheel printer would be mechanically easy to build. You could even make the daisy wheels swappable to allow different character sets.
  - userbinator 4y ago
    You could even make the daisy wheels swappable to allow different character sets. You made me imagine a pan-Unicode daisywheel set the size of a bookshelf, and a printer that swaps them while printing, like a CNC machine. If only one had enough time and money...
    - HideousKojima 4y ago
      I'm picturing old tape drive robot arms like this one: https://hips.hearstapps.com/pop.h-cdn.co/assets/16/19/1462894749-ibm-tape-bot.gif https://hips.hearstapps.com/pop.h-cdn.co/assets/16/19/146289...

by detaro 4y ago

xypage 4y ago

The trick is that an open hardware printer would likely have much cheaper cartridges, and typically people spend much much more on the ink than the printer. So even if the printer comes out as more expensive they can price gouge less on ink and still come out as the economical choice

detaro 4y ago
People that buy printers for printing a lot already optimize for that though, and thus buy printers with cheap ink/toner. And inks and their formulation are a big hurdle for a good open design: Either you pick some off-the-shelf vendor ink at whatever that costs, or you now also need to specify and enable ink production.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  Most people would be happy with black and white printer for home and I don't think ink formulation is that much a hurdle in that particular context. Home printing is mostly driven by: - children asking for coloring pages to their parents - quickly copying/printing documents for admin stuff Both do not need color. Any time a professionnal and colored output is needed, most people turn to professionnal copy/printing services.
  - detaro 4y ago
    So the target to beat is a ~100$ laser printer with a ~$0.04 per page materials cost then.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    Most people would save money by sending they print to a nearby store and paying $.20/page. Sure in theory the printer they have at home is much cheaper, but for the amount they print vs the life of a printer in reality their printer is much more expensive. Plus they can choose color (extra cost), photo quality (much higher cost, but quality they can't get at home) when they want it.

RobotToaster 4y ago

Open source designs can end up extremely cheap, when dozens of Chinese companies start manufacturing them. Exactly that happened with 3d printers.

snvzz 4y ago

>unless it also somehow would manage to be extremely cheap. It doesn't have to be cheap. It needs to be durable and easy to repair (e.g. by being modular, and largely 3d-printable). It needs to use standards (IPP, postscript and so on) and thus not require specialized drivers. It needs to be able to run on cheap and easy to refill/replace cartridges, be it ink or toner. Hell, I'd even take ink tape and dot pin. Just no DRM bullshit to deal with.

HideousKojima 4y ago
If it's solely printing ASCII text, an open source daisy wheel printer would be mechanically easy to build. You could even make the daisy wheels swappable to allow different character sets.
- userbinator 4y ago
  You could even make the daisy wheels swappable to allow different character sets. You made me imagine a pan-Unicode daisywheel set the size of a bookshelf, and a printer that swaps them while printing, like a CNC machine. If only one had enough time and money...
  - HideousKojima 4y ago
    I'm picturing old tape drive robot arms like this one: https://hips.hearstapps.com/pop.h-cdn.co/assets/16/19/1462894749-ibm-tape-bot.gif https://hips.hearstapps.com/pop.h-cdn.co/assets/16/19/146289...