Nina KalininaFeb 2

I'm yet again reminded that accessibility technologies are priced unfairly. Did you know that a pair of hearing aids starts at roughly £500 but an average model can easily cost over £1500? And it's not like it's rocket science.
Similarly, Braille displays start at £1500, but can easily cost over £5000.
Similarly, the most popular and one of the most affordable Braille printers costs almost £3000.

Something can be said about special design requirements for such devices, or about the fact that there is no demand to make them at the scale that would allow to cut the costs ten times. And I can't even say that a high price is an excuse; if you'd try to build a Braille embosser that can operate at practical speeds with decent reliability using off the shelf components, you are likely to spend more money on it than you'd spend getting a commercial solution, even without R&D costs.

So, uh, folks, we can do better. I can't be the only one who keeps thinking about making such technologies cheaper, right?

Show threadpixxFeb 2
@nina_kali_nina
I imagine a 3d printer with a paper feed as in a 2d printer could make a decent braille printer? 🤔
Show threadNina Kalinina
@pixx it can produce something readable, but it's very slow. :(
Feb 2 at 9:56amWeb
Show threadpixxFeb 2
@nina_kali_nina
Mmmm. Might be possible to speed it up if modding one to be special purpose, but - unsure how the effort compares to a better design
Show threadNina KalininaFeb 2
@pixx at least there's https://www.braillerap.org/en/ as a point of reference
BrailleRAP

The BrailleRAP project is an open source, Do It Yourself Braille embosser. On this site, you'll find all the plans and diagrams, as well as the assembly manual and the necessary software.