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- eksith 13y agoThat's a very cool project. But I wonder how it gets over the initial friction of lifting and pulling the paper through as it goes lower on the stack. Surely there's a limit after which, you'd need to remove the completed sheets off the top?
- spc476 13y agoFrom what I can see, it looks like there are a series of rollers that rest on the paper, which allows the printer to pull the top sheet with little, of any, friction.
- eksith 13y agoLittle friction against the device itself, but not the other sheets beneath it. The weight of the device + completed sheets on top will add to the friction between the next sheet and those below it.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- morpher 13y agoIt looks like this is just a design concept (not a prototyped device). In addition to the initial friction issue, the printed page would not be able to be placed on top of the stack after it got too tall. So, nice looking, but unlikely to be very practical.
- ams6110 13y agonice looking, but unlikely to be very practical Bang and Olufsen sells a lot of home electronics that meet that description.
- cargo8 13y agoI could see a way where if the device was fitted with springs of some sort it would be able to "stand" or lift itself to prevent that kind of friction (of course there would be a limit to the size of the paper stack on top, but you could probably design it / fit it with springs such that the limit is practical (and far more than the amount of paper someone would logically use for this) This is freaking beautiful. I hope it can work.
- veidr 13y agoThere has to be a limit, but in most real world use, people rarely leave tons of paper on the printer without collecting it (of course there are exceptions).
- bryogenic 13y agoMaybe the way they are looking at it is like this: Top Paper 1 --------- Gap Tray 2 --------- Bottom Paper Paper would be collected from bottom using standard scanner/paper style paper grabbing, scanned or printed to and placed in Gap Tray. Gap tray and entire top paper stack need lifted and placed back on support layer 1. Pages would probably be upside down of their original unless they were fed back and forth. All the paper would need lifted up, so there would be a limit, unless... a different idea would be the same thing along a horizontal track of papers. I'm still liking the idea of a scanner shredder. http://designforpeople.ca/?p=215 http://designforpeople.ca/?p=215 To extend this stack design make it like an inverted shredder with a 5" shop vac hose connected to the top :P
- eksith 13y agoClever! A scanner that digitizes text as it destroys it can see some good use in a disposal/archival location. The Gap Tray itself would still need to rest on something while it grabs the bottom sheet. There may be slightly less effort if it grabs the sheets from the side rather than from top/bottom. This way, has a shorter distance it has to pull through, but the friction may still be significant. All this talk has really whet my appetite, though. Now I really want to see it come to life.
- philsnow 13y agoReminds me of Vinge's "Rainbow's End", there was a device which shredded whole books, then sucked the confetti through a hose that had tiny cameras in the walls, and they stitched scans of the original books together in software.
- brador 13y agoClever until the scanner part breaks but the shredder keeps shredding.
- BrandonY 13y agoWait...what happens if there's a paper jam halfway through scanshredding?
- dag11 13y agoThis is beautiful. I love the idea of an inverted printer, where instead of paper moving through the printer, it's as if the printer is moving through the paper.
- chm 13y agoAll I'm thinking is: What diploma?
- nnutter 13y agoSeems like it would be easy to make a model that still houses the paper to prevent tipping and would still allow for infrequent loading.
- bryogenic 13y agoEven better, maybe turn it on its side and have it move horizontally?
- axelf1989 13y agoWould it require a perfectly stacked pile? It would seem annoying if you slightly bang in to the pile and have it be off balance.
- solistice 13y agoDoesn't look like he accounted for paper that isn't stacked perfectly, but as in my comment above, it wouldn't be incredibly hard to incorporate that into the design.
- zenocon 13y agoIs there a video of it in action?
- alphonse23 13y agodoesn't look like it. I'm beginning to think this is all hype and no real show.
- taejo 13y agoIt's a design concept.
- tlongren 13y agoI'd be knocking the thing over all the time I'm afraid. Would probably only use 100 or so sheets at a time, though.
- faddotio 13y agoAll I see is a target for my stumbling clumsy self! And a big cleanup job afterward.
- rgovostes 13y agoThis printer concept is also cool: http://renelee.net/arc/ http://renelee.net/arc/
- nadaviv 13y agoPretty cool indeed. The design process [1] is also quite interesting to read. [1] http://renelee.net/arc/2/ http://renelee.net/arc/2/
- curuinor 13y agoI recall reading about this idea in the science-fiction role-playing game Shadowrun. It's set in 2060-2080, so technology is better in nearly all ways: including a printer design as described here. Very interesting, in the shadow of the total lack of progress in actual printer technology in the last few decades.
- mathattack 13y agoIs this art or a prototype? I just see it on my desk tipping over. :-)
- mcrider 13y agoAt first I thought, and don't see why this couldn't be, a scanner that eats through documents and saves a digital copy of them. This form factor would make digitizing large sets of printed records much more appealing.
- oellegaard 13y agoI scan all my receipts and incoming mail, I doubt you would even be able to make a stable "tower" of these things. It probably only works with new paper. One of my first thoughts was also that leaving the paper open in the free would result in a lot of dust collecting on it.
- hijackson 13y agoI'm creating $86 associate degree hour engaging from home. i used to be appalled once my neighbour told Pine Tree State she was averaging $95 however I see however it works currently. I feel most freedom currently that i am my very own boss. this is often what I do, www.jobs34.com
- ZoF 13y agoClassic.
- mieubrisse 13y agoI've been moving to do the exact same thing at home, to get rid of all that paper clutter. If you don't mind me asking, what scanner do you use - presumably one with an auto document feeder?
- ams6110 13y agoHopefully not the Xerox scanner that can alter the documents.
- spyder 13y agoAnother cool printer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baqDk1G9zUE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baqDk1G9zUE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPhLFxRgfQ8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPhLFxRgfQ8
- el_benhameen 13y agoThis is definitely cool, but it strikes me as a solution looking for a problem. Mobile printers that print out a sheet much faster than this are available at pretty low cost. I'm genuinely curious to hear why someone would buy this--any thoughts?
- Too 13y agoSpiral bound notebooks(as in the video), cardboard boxes, walls and other odd shaped surfaces don't fit into printers.
- johnvschmitt 13y agoThe sooner the printer dies, the better. Every company or process that makes me print something in 2013 makes me barf. Ever heard of web forms? Docusign? Email? So, as beautiful as this is, it's solving a problem for 1960-1995. Now, all I want to see in the printer innovation is some way to kill it off faster.
- rsync 13y agoAmen. What better way to say "fuck you, your time is worthless" than to ask someone to print / scan / fax something. OP has cool printer design though :)
- peafruit 13y agoI still have paper copies of important documents from the 1980s. I have no idea where the digital copies from that era disappeared to. Paper has its place; it's a fantastic archival medium. I also still print out contracts to review them. They're easier to mark up that way, and I can focus entirely on the paper -- including quickly leafing through it, while comparing multiple pages -- in a way that I can't as easily do on the desktop. Paper isn't dead yet; it still has the best UX available for many common use cases.
- if_by_whisky 13y agoOf course you have no idea where your digital documents from the 1980's are. In 30 years you'll still have your most important digital documents from today though.
- detharonil 13y agoIt seems as though a more practical (though perhaps more dust-prone, when empty) design would do this partially upside-down. Rather than allowing the printer to move downward though the paper, why not load the paper from the top? One could set a full stack atop something similar to his current design using the rollers, and the finished pages could exit through the front in order to prevent them from building up below. The final roller could simply be removed and a slit added to the front such that the finished paper could exit the printer cleanly. A solid plastic sheet could then be added to catch the printed paper which folds back atop the body of the printer when it is being transported or simply not in use, perhaps to prevent the aforementioned build-up of dust. This accomplishes Yamamoto's goal of removing the paper tray and simplifying as well as shrinking the design while avoiding the dangerous consequences of brushing past the printer while it is atop a high stack of paper. Of course, none of this addresses a central flaw with his design. Even if two models are produced for Letter and A4 paper, there are still many other sizes in use, and there appears to be no easy way to adjust the sizes of the intake and output areas without the dreaded paper tray.
- solistice 13y agoTechnically you only have to adjust the size of the inlet and handle the rest in software. Since the paper would be comming down vertically, you can do mechanical centering akin to that used in industrial processes.
- detharonil 13y agoI like the idea, but doing so still adds a great deal of complexity to a supposedly simple design and adds a large amount to the size of the printer if one accounts for the use of legal paper. While I wouldn't mind settling on a standard paper size, the design still leaves a great deal to be desired. It appears to be more of a gimmick than anything.
- markkanof 13y agoSo based on this design concept I have to assume that they expect this printer to run on either batteries or wireless power of some sort. I don't mean to be too down on this as it is an interesting concept, but it annoys me when designers leave out things like power cords to make their mockup look cleaner than it actually is. It seems like a copout.
- oellegaard 13y agoI'd love to see the kickstarter for this :)
- Zolomon 13y agoThis has a very "functional programming paradigm" feel around it.
- eridius 13y agoThat looks really cool. But what happens if the user bumps the printer? The entire stack of paper falls over, and the printer falls to the floor.
- StavrosK 13y agoWhat happens when you bump the stack of 20,000 sheets of paper in your printer's tray currently?
- munchbunny 13y agoNot much. The plastic guides do a good job of keeping the paper in place. Unless you mean the reams of paper outside the printer?
- alphonse23 13y agocool idea, but no video -- don't believe it.
- groundCode 13y agoLooks fantastic, but I wonder about the tolerance wrt paper alignment. I'm picturing my office where people usually rush up to the printer, grab their printout and bump the printer.
- aaron695 13y agoSeriously? Another here's a CGed idea not even close to being implemented? (Which is fine except 99% of the time is because it's not possible/practical) I know there's a claim there's a real version but not seeing pics of it? Or youtube?
- dictum 13y agoReally interesting as an experiment in industrial design and a conversation piece. As a viable product, I have some doubt: anecdotally, when I see people printing documents, they're in something of a hurry, and keeping the pile of paper sheets aligned would be hard. If you slightly knock the printer while using it, the stack of paper may tilt to a side. And having to keep the papers aligned would become an annoyance similar to the PC LOAD LETTER of yore. Handling A4 and Letter sizes at the same time may not be possible. I don't know how being exposed in a pile would affect the humidity of the paper... I like how it makes me think of printing as a computing process, paper as input and printed page as output, but instead of feeding the machine with input, you "feed" the input with a machine and it gives you the output. If you extend the thought, it's as if the machine disappears, and paper (the input) is processing and then outputting (printed page) itself.
- arh68 13y ago> If you extend the thought, it's as if the machine disappears Indeed it does. How long was it after we discovered DNA that we discovered its 'machine', DNA polymerase? And in the end, what's more interesting?
- joss82 13y agoJust to further your comment, the ribosome is another interesting machine that reads DNA and spits out little pieces of you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome
- ams6110 13y agoThat was my initial thought, but in practice I don't think you'd really stack up the paper as shown in the photos. You might stack up a couple of reams, which is a lot lower than the stacks shown, and it might be possible to add some kind of collapsible/telescoping "corner plates" that would help keep the stack from shifting.
- tripzilch 13y agoYeah no need to unwrap the packaging of any but the top pack of sheets anyway.
- acegopher 13y agoDoes anyone remember dot-matrix printers? You also didn't need a paper tray: http://imgur.com/4tsSx2W http://imgur.com/4tsSx2W
- mamcx 13y agoI wonder what if a laser printer could be feed like with the paper of a dot-matrix (with the tray helpers)
- lukejduncan 13y agoAwesome project, cool concept. I'd imagine the single challenge problem would be wind. If people walk by or the window is open...
- sova 13y agocan't believe no one has noticed that he made a real life turing machine (sorta)
- mjgoeke 13y agoWhen I saw the first image I thought it was going to be a scanner (for digitizing the information in the stack, then recycling said stack), not a printer. That would have been more impressive to me.
- networkjester 13y agoWow. Just, wow. The first words out of my mouth actually were "that's beautiful". Nothing else more constructive to say, just wanted to leave kudos here for the OP.