We could probably print one with a 3d printer.
this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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It's funny because anecdotally, the entirety of the FOSS movement was started because Richard Stallman was tilted that he had the know-how to fix the printer at the lab he worked at, but was not legally allowed to.
You'd think "Printers" would have been the first thing the FSF would have tried to create.
It does seem ironic that we have opensource 3d printers before 2d printers.
5-yo reddit thread lol - We should create an open source 2d printer
Newer post on Hardware Hub: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/open-source-printer-concept/204444
As someone who's assembled a couple of FDM* 3D printers and disassembled a number of 2D printers, the latter is usually a lot more complicated mechanically (varies a lot by features provided, like double-sided print).
I am once again telling you about my old HP inkjet printer that has no internet connection, takes refills, the ink never dries out and it prints black and white without needing any color ink.
Printers peaked 15-20 years ago and I got lucky and bought one at the right time. The best part is when I buy new ink the money goes to someone who refills cartridges and none of it to HP.
there is a near endless supply of brother laser printers at thrift stores for under 15 bucks. and they come with toner carts still in them.
the last one I got from goodwill is still going strong on the toner that came with it, and its been years.
and if the toner ever does wear out, hell, I could buy 3 more printers for what the toner would cost.
also bonus that brother printers work super good in linux, least headache i've ever had installing a printer.
It's wild to think about, but 3D filament extrusion printers are actually a lot more simple than ink/toner document printers. I think the age of printing - at least in home and small office settings - is coming to an end. Most people I know don't have one and those that do can only think of "so I can print boarding passes" as a reason.
Its crazy how we now have 3D printers that consistently work every time with very little fuss but 2D printers are somehow still shit.
That's because it's a lot harder to feed paper and put multicolored tiny dots on it than it is to move a nozzle around and feed a comparatively large squirt of filament.
But we've had 2D printers for longer? That would imply that its a simpler task, not having to deal with temperature and layer adhesion and all.
Things do not always get implemented in complexity order. A lot of the time it's dictated by whether one has both a use-case and the means to implement it, and businesses have had money and a need to put things on paper for quite a while.
That being said, 3D printing is difficult and complicated, in software. Mechanically it's quite simple. A DIY-er can easily copy complicated software to use a 3D printer, but you can't easily copy complicated mechanical parts to make a 2D printer.
Today my HP printer asked my for my GPS location, to allow me to scan a document. Like why? Why is it required to use a basic option?
HP printers are shit, I don't want one even if you pay me. Buy a office-class B&W laser from Brother and never worry again.
I bought a brother color laser printer during lockdown, 4 years and it's never had an issue, and I have yet to change the cartridges. I'll never go back to inkjet.
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Ostensibly, that's because the app wants Bluetooth and/or WiFi access so it can connect to the printer. Because you can use WiFi and Bluetooth to determine location (based on large crowd sourced databases of these data points that have been geolocated), the OS has to ask for location permission as well, even if you just need to see WiFi and Bluetooth.
That being said, once they have this permission, I have 0 doubt they log the actual location as well...
Mozilla used to run a free service for this, and collected that data in the background using mobile Firefox. A replacement is https://beacondb.net/, which is still building enough location data to become useful. Services like this aren't nefarious, they're actually really important in getting a quick GPS lock on mobile. Phone hardware actually have pretty poor GPS receivers, but if you can determine an approximate location prior, you get much better results, especially once supplemented with inertial measurements and snapping to mapped roads.
Because NSA.
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It makes sense if you know about the identifying marks printers add to any output.
I thought I've come across some crazy conspiracy when I first found this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots
a digital watermark which many color laser printers and photocopiers produce on every printed page that identifies the specific device that was used
Even worse was my Epson MFP.
Me: Want to scan a page
Printer: No can do
Me: But why?
Printer: I'm outta yellow ink.
Me: How's that relevant to the task of scanning something?
Printer: 🖕🖕
It took a dive from my balcony right into the dumpster bin.
How else will the police track your documents back to you without invisible fingerprints.
If you've got a printer that does that, add lots of yellow dots to your document before printing it.
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An open source 2d printer is possible but will probably never happen
The print head is incredibly complex, the drivers and communications to talk to printers are all closed source, and unlike 3d printing the level of quality people are accustomed to is covered by patents for another 20-30 years
the drivers and communications to talk to printers are all closed source
That hasn't stopped CUPS
just today I read that microsoft will stop accepting any new printer drivers. If new printers are to work, they must support mopria and IPP.
That should eventually have positive side effects for us linux users
If I remember correctly, the restriction is that Microsoft will no longer distribute new print drivers via Windows Update. But I agree that moving to a common standard will help everyone’s print experience immensely. Trying to deal with HPs drivers is nightmare fuel.
CUPS works great when it does work but it can be a real pain in the ass. That said if you build the printer around it it would probably work pretty well
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The print head is not complex, the printer companies just make it out to be. Essentially it's just a funnel to transfer ink onto paper. All that's needed is a needle to deliver the ink to the paper, or puncture the top layer to inject the ink to it. Apply heat to set the ink afterward. Moving the head over the paper and moving the rollers for the paper to move is already software which is known to the 3d printing community. The big trick is finding a system which doesn't hit some backward patent and getting a prototype made. That largely takes time and money.
Most modern printers aren’t what you describe though, they’re either a piezo that flexes with electricity to create pressure on the ink chamber and release a precise droplet of ink or they are a thermal design where a resistor heats inside the ink chamber to create pressure that forces ink out of the nozzle and subsequently draws more ink into the chamber as it cools. Heat is used here to eject the ink but heat is not used to set the ink in either process, that is done with evaporation and absorption (which is why printing a full page image can smear).
It’s not some big secret as you’ve said, the patents are openly available, but as you’ve said they’re off limits even for noncommercial use because America is stupid. It’s true that they’re not mystical and impossible to recreate but they’re definitely harder to replicate than a heat sink with a tube cut in it, a heat break, a cartridge heater, and a metal nozzle with a (typically) 0.4mm hole
The print head in most inkjet printers (at least non commercial ones) has no moving parts (unless you count the piezo flexing). Dot matrix used needles but why recreate that unless you specifically want that for the vibes or something?
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If you're worried about opsec and want to like, print subversive pamphlets, one way to do it would be to use a 3D printer. Literally 3D a small printing press. Use 3d printed movable type. Or perhaps better, just print the sheet of a pamphlet as a single print and swap out the pages as you go.
If you wanted a secure way to print something, you could use an open source 3D printer to do it. You're just using it to make plates for a literal old-fashioned screw-type printing press.
I mean, there’s no reason why a 3D printer couldn’t be rigged up to use a stylus instead of an extruder. (Plotters exist after all.) Probably not very performant compared to your solution though.
I do love the idea of making old timey printing plates using a 3D printer. If you printed in TPU would that make the equivalent of a rubber stamp?
I do love the idea of making old timey printing plates using a 3D printer. If you printed in TPU would that make the equivalent of a rubber stamp?
Probably.
I mean, there’s no reason why a 3D printer couldn’t be rigged up to use a stylus instead of an extruder. (Plotters exist after all.) Probably not very performant compared to your solution though.
Yeah, plotters exist, but they're slow. The reason I mention subversive literature is that activist groups are some of those that would most benefit from an open source printer option. Regular commercial printers all have government-mandated fingerprinting software built into them. A home made printing press gives you the throughput of an inkjet printer but without the opsec issues.
Every time this is brought up someone has to remind people that printers watermark whatever they print with a unique ID in barely readable type. That's, for example, why they refuse to print something in black when yellow is low. And it's a legal requirement.
That is only specific brands like HP with only specific models as well.
https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots
Your own link says that as of 2017 assume all new printers print some form of tracking
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We would absolutely love an actual open source printer you can get off the shelf parts and maybe some 3d printing and just use normal liquid ink rather than some inkjet cartridges. And no not some janky 3D printer set up to be a make shift printer, like an actual put the paper in and stuff comes out kind of printer. Prompts for a scanner and copier combo
This is the best I can find an open source printers, It uses an ancient HP black cartridge that's still in production which provides you the heads. The cartridge is pretty cheap.
https://www.instructables.com/Make-a-Handheld-InkJet-Printer-Print-on-ANY-Surfac/
The problem is the ink they use brings more to the table than just being expensive. Unless you intend on using a ballpoint pen plotter or you're going back to Dot matrix, you can't just deliver regular ink to a page. The piezo-electric nozzles need a very specific density and viscosity, It needs to dry at just exactly the right time and be able to be cleaned off the nozzle with the lightest wipe. The ink and the nozzles have 50 years of experience behind them.
Making a head go across the page with precision and high resolution is a very well solved problem, couple of steppers some electronics Legos and a 5-minute Google search you could get that part going. But you're going to have to use somebody's printheads and ink because that's well beyond DIY scope.
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My solution is to do all my printing at the library. All the problems related to keeping my ink cartridge ready are now their problem.
Omg, this made me chuckle in the best way. This is the most accurate comic I've seen in a bit. When I got an IT job, printers were so alien to me because I hadn't had one in many years. They're stupid and I hate them, but what are you gonna do.
As someone who spent most of my early IT years dealing with printers, they never get any less alien. Also, they are stupid and I hate them.
Yes!! A 2d printer that you can assemble with 3d printed parts. Let's do it. Which technologies can we use to 2d print that are easy to assemble?
Well.... There is quite a bit of high precision manufacturing needed for the actual print heads... Something like a Dot Matrix straight from 1990s should be doable by people with appropriate CNC machines and shit, something like "Line Typers" (1950s-1970s automatic computer operated type writers) are manageable if you can precision mold metals
But an ink jet or laser jet? Naw big dawg that shit is complicated as fuck
If you can somehow manufacture the ink head, an ink jet printer is like 2 step motors and one really complicated print head on rails
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Yes please. Printers are so annoying and it's a racket.
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