I thought many here would be interested in this story. Crowd funding an open source printer.
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The HP cartridges are a poor choice.
Can it please have a non proprietary ink tank,refillable at home
Can you imagine EV manufacturers setting a low price for a car and charging about the same amount for a non rechargable battery. The motor world would not tolerate it.
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I was thinking initially the HP cartridges would be a good choice because they would be widely available. But if it really takes off or even after several years HP will likely discontinue those particular cartridges.
I don’t know but I am guessing you can refill those cartridges. HP just prevents you from doing it on their printers.
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All cartridges are a bad idea. Why cant printers have a home refillable fuel tank like a car.?
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You can… But - from the article - the inkjet print heads are on the cartridge - and when they wear out - you have to replace the whole cartridge - and - that leaves users being vulnerable to HP’s infamous enshittification practise (i.e. killing manufacture of the consumables).
And - it’s not clear - where can you buy those rolls of paper?
Personally - I’d kinda / rather see a laser solution like this… Monochrome first off… then colour… I’ve always preferred laser to ink (or dot matrix) - there’s less moving parts - so less things to fail…
But anyway - it was an interesting article worth reading - thanks for sharing @pdecker 
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At work we used to run a wax block printer. It was an excellent performer for colour printing.
What happened to that technology?
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I think cartridges have knowledge built in… When I am desperate to print something, one if the 4 cartridges are empty, but I have a stock of other colours. Or for another printer not the same model.
Yes like the idea of ink tanks, except when the overflow tank is full, so empty clean out but then need to reset the counter where the only software only runs on windows.
Been one of those months (and it’s only 12 days in) where I have 3 printers available and every one has a different problem so a 5 mins print job takes all morning and a visit to a ink stockist to buy one cartridge
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Fantastic idea and usage of a Pi Zero!
Using readily available cartridges (which can be made refillable and DON’T have a chip) is brilliant!
In theory you just have to buy one of each once in a lifetime!
I was a little worried about the paper roll but it says it can handle standard paper.
Thank you for sharing the news!
Edit: Actually this is the same printer I received this link 10 months ago and it is Open Hardware
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