Tired of paying the equivalent of $10,000 per gallon for inkjet cartridges, and throwing away printers that aren’t fixable? According to the Open Printer project, a solution is on the way.
Usually, I don’t report on projects that are on their way to being crowdfunded but I’m breaking my rule on this one. The other day I saw an advance post from a group called Open Tools about Open Printer, an upcoming inkjet printer that will be fully user repairable and upgradable. Not only that, its inkjet cartridges are fully refillable, it’s completely open source, and with a design that anyone can understand well enough to make the word “repairable” meaningful.
“Built with standard mechanical components and modular parts, it’s easy to assemble, modify, and repair,” the Open Printer folks said in a post on Crowd Supply. “You can print on standard sheets or paper rolls and choose between black or color cartridges, refillable at your convenience.”
It’s probably a good thing that they mentioned the paper choices in the post, because all of the accompanying photos show the device loaded with rolled paper, meaning it wasn’t obvious that you could feed it paper sheets, which could be a deal breaker for some people. That being said, if you want to save a bit on paper costs by using the paper option, it comes with a built-in paper slicer, which should make it impossible to tell that the finished product came off a roll.
What isn’t mentioned, however, is the ability of the machine to handle envelopes.
Built on a Totally Open Framework
According to the folks at Open Tools, this printer built on open principles from the top to the bottom. Even its electronics and mechanical design files, firmware code, and the bill of materials are covered under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
“Thanks to its open-source, standard components, Open Printer can be assembled, customized, and repaired to extend its life. You can easily maintain it and refill cartridges with ink, and its flexible design can adapt to your workspace, working when installed on a wall or placed on a desktop.
“Open Printer adapts to your needs, not the other way around. With Open Printer, you can choose between standard sheets or a paper roll, giving you an incredible degree of flexibility. Create not only standard documents, but also banners or strips.”
Features and Specs
These are the specifications that have been released so far:
- Print Specs
- Black & White: 600 dpi
- Color: 1200 dpi
- Printhead compatibility: HP 63 (US), HP 302 (Europe)
- Ink cartridges: use only one (black or color) or both (black and color), refillable
- Speed: TBD
- Supported paper formats
- North American letter, tabloid, and 11-inch wide paper roll
- European A4, A3, and 27 mm-wide paper roll
- Processing
- Main board: Raspberry Pi Zero W
- Cartridge board: STM32 MCU
- Interface
- Display: 1.47-inch, 172 x 320 TFT LCD
- Button: Jogger wheel
- Connectivity
- USB Type-C (computer)
- USB Type-A (for USB mass storage device)
- Wi-Fi 802.11ac
- Bluetooth 4.1
- Power: 24 V DC supply, 2.1 mm DC-in jack
- Compatibility: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iPhone (uses the CUPS open-source print server)
- Dimensions: 50 x 10 x 11 cm (19.7 x 3.9 x 4.3 in)
Availability
No pricing or release information has been released. However, if you sign up on the product’s page, you’ll be kept informed as the project progresses.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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