Yeah inkjet printers will probably never be opensource, due to the fact that the tiny nozzles are impossible to produce without owning a semiconductor fab that can build stuff in the mems realm.
Laser printers could be the way to go, they sound more complicated, but all the components needed for them are getting cheaper.
A laser is focusable to a tiny spot, meaning one can use non mems elements.
Basically take a laser engraver (the type with the fixed laser head and those 2 spinning mirrors), point it at a high voltage drum, lase the pattern (removes the charge from parts of the drum), add the toner power and then roll over paper.
For color just replicate that x3.
I think a Opensource Black/White laser printer should be possible at a price point of maybe 600$ in components (3d printers also started out at that price point then got cheaper).
I doubt it would be as quick as commercial models but it should be doable.
You are missing a vital part of how a laser printer works. The toner is dusted onto a drum that has a static charge. That charge is manipulated by the laser, which means that there is a very specific frequency that the laser has to utilize and it has to be keyed to the material used for the drum. I would have to dig more into the specific interaction, but I am pretty sure that off the rack lasers and drums are not going to be functional, both in wattage and frequency.
So the laser printer process is: a laser traces the negative space on a drum with a static charge to discharge those spots, next a pigment substrate is dusted onto the drum, being held by the static where the positive space is going to be. Following that, a heater heats the substrate to permanently affix it to the page.
Yeah inkjet printers will probably never be opensource, due to the fact that the tiny nozzles are impossible to produce without owning a semiconductor fab that can build stuff in the mems realm.
Laser printers could be the way to go, they sound more complicated, but all the components needed for them are getting cheaper. A laser is focusable to a tiny spot, meaning one can use non mems elements. Basically take a laser engraver (the type with the fixed laser head and those 2 spinning mirrors), point it at a high voltage drum, lase the pattern (removes the charge from parts of the drum), add the toner power and then roll over paper. For color just replicate that x3.
I think a Opensource Black/White laser printer should be possible at a price point of maybe 600$ in components (3d printers also started out at that price point then got cheaper). I doubt it would be as quick as commercial models but it should be doable.
You are missing a vital part of how a laser printer works. The toner is dusted onto a drum that has a static charge. That charge is manipulated by the laser, which means that there is a very specific frequency that the laser has to utilize and it has to be keyed to the material used for the drum. I would have to dig more into the specific interaction, but I am pretty sure that off the rack lasers and drums are not going to be functional, both in wattage and frequency.
So the laser printer process is: a laser traces the negative space on a drum with a static charge to discharge those spots, next a pigment substrate is dusted onto the drum, being held by the static where the positive space is going to be. Following that, a heater heats the substrate to permanently affix it to the page.
I think an open source paper cnc machine similar to a cricut would be way easier to replicate than a standard printer.
That’s a plotter, and opensource plotters do already exist. Problem with em is that they lack speed and precision to print small text.