Paris-based Open Instruments is seeking to launch an inkjet printer with a few huge variations: it prints on a steady roll of paper and cuts the pages to dimension mechanically, and it is completely open supply — bar its off-the-shelf print heads and ink cartridges.
“Open Printer is an open-source, repairable inkjet printer designed for makers, artists, and anybody bored with throwaway {hardware},” Open Instruments’ Léonard Hartmann, Nicolas Schurando, and Laurent Berthuel clarify. “Constructed with commonplace mechanical elements and modular elements, it’s simple to assemble, modify, and restore. You possibly can print on commonplace sheets or paper rolls and select between black or coloration cartridges, refillable at your comfort. This undertaking goals to reclaim our on a regular basis instruments. As such, it options no proprietary drivers, no cartridge DRM [Digital Rights Management] that locks you to a single vendor and is designed to by no means turn into out of date.”
The Open Printer is an inkjet with a distinction, being totally open supply — bar its DRM-free and refillable print cartridges. (📷: Open Instruments)
That latter declare is directed clearly and firmly at industrial printer corporations, which have lengthy been locked in a battle to keep up earnings of their “razor-blade advertising and marketing” method to promoting prints: subsidizing the price of the printer itself within the expectation of constructing the cash up on its consumables. Third-party cartridges, both remanufactured refills or brand-new compatibles, can imply taking an total loss on each printer bought — main corporations together with Brother, Epson, and Hewlett-Packard to implement a spread of restrictions in {hardware} and firmware in an effort to lock printers right down to their particular first-party cartridges.
The Open Printer, its creators declare, will not try this — though it is based mostly round off-the-shelf Hewlett-Packard coloration and black ink cartridges with built-in print heads, the tiny microfluidic nozzles of a high-resolution inkjet being a bit past the realm of do-it-yourself {hardware}. These cartridges, which may be third-party compatibles or refilled originals, are put in in a cartridge board pushed by an STMicroelectronics STM32 microcontroller — which is, in flip, related to a Raspberry Pi Zero W single-board laptop performing because the central mind of the system.
An on-board 1.47″ show and jog-wheel offers native interactivity, whereas the printer itself may be related to a PC over USB, wirelessly through Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, or load from a USB Mass Storage Gadget (MSD) for direct file printing — whereas a CUPS-based driver means broad compatibility with working methods each desktop and cell. The printer’s paper, in the meantime, may be loaded as pre-cut sheets in letter, tabloid, A4, and A3 sizes, or as a steady roll — with a built-in cutter knife capable of trim the latter to the specified dimension following the completion of every web page.
A continuous-feed paper roll is mechanically reduce into web page sizes with a built-in knife. (📷: Open Instruments)
“Open Printer will use the Artistic Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 [Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike] license for all of its information,” its creators promise, “together with electronics and mechanical design information, firmware code, and the invoice of supplies. We hope that folks will be capable of restore, improve, and contribute enhancements to their printers.”
Extra data is on the market on the undertaking’s Crowd Provide marketing campaign web page, the place events can signal as much as be notified when the crowdfunding marketing campaign goes dwell.
