Mastodawn

Jill Minor Sep 30

I am VERY excited about this open source printer project. We are pretty light users of our HP inkjet printer, so much so that we've had ink cartridges dry on us, forcing replacement. The ability to refill cartridges would mean that I'd be able to set up a cron job to do a test print every once in a while to keep the cartridges from gumming up.

Not to mention being out from the "phone home" DRM/auto-update bullsh*t.

@pluralistic would be proud

https://www.crowdsupply.com/open-tools/open-printer

Open Printer

Finally, an open hardware printer you can actually understand, repair, and upgrade

Crowd Supply

shironeko Sep 30

@knasman @pluralistic I find that it's not that hard to unclog the print heads at least to a point where the print is usable (I still get some streaks) so I've just been living with it 😔

Michel Morin Sep 30

@knasman @pluralistic
Brilliant!

@knasman @pluralistic Cool project, though, the fact that we need printers for anything other than printing colouring pages for kids is a failure of society.

babble encat Sep 30

@knasman @pluralistic a way out of printer tracking dots would be great, I hope the project succeeds

Bryan Haskin Sep 30

@knasman @pluralistic interesting. I wonder how it handles tracking dots if at all.

Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary Oct 1

@bhhaskin @knasman @pluralistic
One would hope "not at all" if it's actually meant to free people.

JamesB192 Sep 30

@knasman @pluralistic I beleive that no_such_author aka Fred Barnes I has a patch to add that specific feature. J/k

Greg Hills Sep 30

@knasman @pluralistic Supported paper formats
North American letter, tabloid, and 11-inch wide paper roll
European A4, A3, and ***27 mm-wide*** paper roll

I suspect "27mm" is a typo, but I also hope they don't really mean "27 cm-wide", because 27 cm is not wide enough to allow A4 landscape. That would require 297 mm (11.7"). The missing 9 is probably the typo.

Dima Pasechnik 🇺🇦 🇳🇱Sep 30

@winterknell @knasman @pluralistic probably 27mm is the calibre of their favourite footgun

Greg Hills Oct 1

@dimpase @knasman @pluralistic "Heads, shoulders, knees and - there go the toes."

Typos aside, looks like a great initiative.

dragonfrog Oct 1

@dimpase @winterknell @knasman @pluralistic
That's not just a footgun, that's a light footcannon.

Simon Hewison Oct 1

@winterknell @knasman @pluralistic the ISO paper sizes aren't really just European - they're international, just that USA seems to still also use traditional paper sizes. (I've seen US companies that use A4, and it's possible but rare to source 8.5"x11" paper in Europe.). Back in the 1980s, a lot of European users of dot matrix printers used fanfold 8.5"x11" paper because the software at the time of US origin didn't think A4 was a thing.

JamesAshburner Oct 1

@zymurgic @winterknell @knasman @pluralistic Still have most of a carton of fanfold from ~1985-86. It’s surprisingly good quality paper, which separates to true A4 (after stripping off the two tractor-feed strips). The tractor feeder for my Juki 8100 was too expensive for me.

Cavyherd Sep 30

@knasman @pluralistic

I'd love to have a viable at-home printing option. I've avoided it because of all the nightmare scenarios I've heard (& I have ZERO tolerance for gratuitous tech bullshit--diminishing ever day), but I do have stuff I'd like to be able to print, & jesus FUCK has color printing gotten expensive at service bureaus.

Paul Hutchings Oct 1

@knasman this couldn't be coming at a better time. My moms printer is starting to die and I'm loathing the idea of having to find an unenshittified replacement

Ko Simon toku ingoa

Ko Simon toku ingoa

How much is it to buy the kit?

Wish I’d seen this before I bought a new printer three days ago…

Jennifer Moore 😷Oct 1

It hasn't launched yet!

Ko Simon toku ingoa

@unchartedworlds ah, I see

Donald Hobern Oct 1

@knasman @pluralistic

@crowdsupply For the project team, I assume that the European "27 mm-wide paper roll" on the web description should be 27 cm.

Chris Geoghooligan ✊Oct 1

@knasman I literally punched the LED display off our last printer, so I too am excited by this and signed up for updates.

Pxl Phile Oct 1

@knasman @pluralistic forget buying ink. That's the next money sinkhole.

Instead:
1. Go into the woods
2. scrape a lot of ink cap mushrooms
3. go for their black fluid
4. ????
5. PROFIT!

Mer-fOKxTOwl Oct 1

@ppxl @knasman @pluralistic plus, the ink from the ink cap mushrooms does not fade over time 😈

Pxl Phile Oct 1

@glowl @knasman @pluralistic oh I forgot this is a thing...

BRB fetching ink cap spores for getting infinity money

@knasman @pluralistic question from germany: can it fax 📠?

Numerfolt Oct 1

@knasman @pluralistic Oh my goodness, thanks for tooting/sharing this!

Jennifer Moore 😷Oct 1

Cool! Thanks for sharing!

Jan Ainali Oct 1

@knasman @pluralistic looks cool, but they are not using an open source license.

Patrick Johanneson 🚀 🇨🇦Oct 1

@ainali @knasman @pluralistic

No?

Open Printer will use the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license for all of its files, including electronics and mechanical design files, firmware code, and the bill of materials. We hope that people will be able to repair, upgrade, and contribute improvements to their printers.

It's not GPL or anything, but it seems fairly open to me. (Though I'm not an expert on this, so if I'm wrong, please correct me.)

Deed - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International - Creative Commons

Jan Ainali Oct 1

@pjohanneson @knasman @pluralistic No. The NC (non-commercial) clause is not compatible with the four freedoms (you should be able to use it for whatever you want) nor the definition of OSI (specifically criteria 6 No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor) https://opensource.org/osd

The Open Source Definition - Open Source Initiative

Introduction Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open source software must comply with the following criteria: 1. Free Redistribution The license shall...

Open Source Initiative

Patrick Johanneson 🚀 🇨🇦Oct 1

Ah, OK. Thanks for the clarification.

Mer-fOKxTOwl Oct 1

@knasman @pluralistic it feels to good to be true that someone took a shot at it. but heck i would be so happy if it works out and those get to be a thing.
especially because it looks tiny in comparison to any other printer out there, and the wall mounted option 😻

dragonfrog Oct 1

@knasman @pluralistic I remember for probably a decade or more my mom used the same inkjet printer and ink cartridge. Instead of buying another cartridge, she just kept a bottle of india ink and a pack of hypodermic needles and refilled the cartridge the printer came with. Couldn't do that with the DRM junk nowadays.

@knasman @pluralistic I made the switch to a laser printer years ago, and love it and swore I'd never go back. but we just recently had to purchase a inkjet because we needed a larger form factor printer. The fact that this thing prints in 11" wide rolls is AMAAAAAAAZING. And also the large form factor inkjet printer is fekin huge, so even better that this thing is tiny. Can't wait for it to come out.

@ticktok therMAL therMAL therMAL! @knasman @pluralistic

Petr Janda Oct 3

@ticktok @pluralistic @knasman I bought a laser black and white HP printer for about 120 bucks 6 years ago. It's not perfect but connects to wifi and usually does the job. Haven't changed a toner yet but I think it's coming up soon.

@petrjanda @pluralistic @knasman I bought a Brother refurb color laser printer also about 6 years ago. It's fantastic, I'm still using the original ink, and the real kicker, last time I did a new linux install, the first time I had to print something I just hit print, it asked if I wanted to add the network printer, then printed. It just worked. Gotta love a peripheral company that adheres to standards.

Richard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP 🇨🇦🌹🚴‍♂️📷 🗺️Oct 3

@knasman @pluralistic

The inkjet printer I was most impressed with, and I don't remember who marketed them, was one with separate refillable chambers for black, cyan, magenta, and yellow ink.

Marcella Francesca

@knasman @pluralistic

No need for it (yet) My ole '83 Atari 1020 pen plotter works fine...

@knasman @pluralistic are such paper rolls common and easy to source? I've never seen those.

@jelte that's a great question!