Paris-based Open Tools is looking to launch an inkjet printer with a couple of big differences: it prints on a continuous roll of paper and cuts the pages to size automatically, and it’s entirely open source — bar its off-the-shelf print heads and ink cartridges.
“Open Printer is an open-source, repairable inkjet printer designed for makers, artists, and anyone tired of throwaway hardware,” Open Tools’ Léonard Hartmann, Nicolas Schurando, and Laurent Berthuel explain. “Built with standard mechanical components and modular parts, it’s easy to assemble, modify, and repair. You can print on standard sheets or paper rolls and choose between black or color cartridges, refillable at your convenience. This project aims to reclaim our everyday tools. As such, it features no proprietary drivers, no cartridge DRM [Digital Rights Management] that locks you to a single vendor and is designed to never become obsolete.”
The Open Printer is an inkjet with a difference, being fully open source — bar its DRM-free and refillable print cartridges. (📷: Open Tools)
That latter claim is directed obviously and firmly at commercial printer companies, which have long been locked in a battle to maintain profits in their “razor-blade marketing” approach to selling prints: subsidizing the cost of the printer itself in the expectation of making the money up on its consumables. Third-party cartridges, either remanufactured refills or brand-new compatibles, can mean taking an overall loss on every printer sold — leading companies including Brother, Epson, and Hewlett-Packard to implement a range of restrictions in hardware and firmware in an effort to lock printers down to their specific first-party cartridges.
The Open Printer, its creators claim, won’t do that — although it’s based around off-the-shelf Hewlett-Packard color and black ink cartridges with built-in print heads, the tiny microfluidic nozzles of a high-resolution inkjet being a little beyond the realm of do-it-yourself hardware. These cartridges, which can be third-party compatibles or refilled originals, are installed in a cartridge board driven by an STMicroelectronics STM32 microcontroller — which is, in turn, connected to a Raspberry Pi Zero W single-board computer acting as the central brain of the system.
An on-board 1.47″ display and jog-wheel provides local interactivity, while the printer itself can be connected to a PC over USB, wirelessly via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, or load from a USB Mass Storage Device (MSD) for direct file printing — while a CUPS-based driver means broad compatibility with operating systems both desktop and mobile. The printer’s paper, meanwhile, can be loaded as pre-cut sheets in letter, tabloid, A4, and A3 sizes, or as a continuous roll — with a built-in cutter knife able to trim the latter to the desired size following the completion of each page.
A continuous-feed paper roll is automatically cut into page sizes with a built-in knife. (📷: Open Tools)
“Open Printer will use the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 [Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike] license for all of its files,” its creators promise, “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.”
More information is available on the project’s Crowd Supply campaign page, where interested parties can sign up to be notified when the crowdfunding campaign goes live.
