We seriously need a FOSS+FOSH printer
I have even thought of some names:
- Gutenberg
- Aldus
- Manutius
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
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It's really surprising this doesn't already exist. It's such a hated piece of tech, I would have thought someome would have thought they could do better! I don't know enough to do it myself but I'd sure as hell support a project to do it!
It will cost too much because they can't get back R&D money back via sales of proprietary ink and spare parts, plus competitors will immediately take advantage of your improvements
Like a prusa (open source 3d printer) costs like 3 bambulab (walled garden closed source 3d printer that uses a fork of prusa slicer)
It's not, though. Printers are actually fairly expensive to manufacture, and they're sold heavily subsidized by the companies in order to sell you a decade of printer cartridges where you make up for that loss. It was the first tech subscription model.
If someone made and sold a shitty inkjet printer at cost, the last time I saw something written up on this years ago, it was several times more than the current cost of printers. And consumers are stupid, so they will go for the immediate cheap thing and get locked in to buying proprietary cartridges rather than invest in saving money long term.
What we need is a Graphine OS for existing printers. A repo of firmware updates that anyone can install to jailbreak a handfull of widely sold printers to allow printing every drop of ink, and DIY refills. Let's be real, we're not a huge part of their market, so IMO the gains are to exist like wolves preying on the occasional sheep, rather than be wolves that try to evolve thumbs and force everyone to learn how to cook and go shopping in order to eat.
1000x this.
We've got all this figured out for 3D printers with all kinds of cool tools to make the job easier, and yet, take away a dimension and there's crickets?
The hell?
Let's make a 3D printable 2D printer.
Or a modular printer
Foss printer when?
Unironically, this is why RMS was radicalized.
i came across this explanation of it, haven't verified it directly but he seems to make good content:
https://youtube.com/shorts/ZX8OaZZDlM8
he says theres identification each time you print using the yellow ink, and basically is a counterfeit currency countermeasure
id kill to have a foss print setup though
I know about the yellow dot thingy. Literally metadata on paper for no reason imo. I highly doubt a person could make a realistic fake through the use of a conventional printer.
In the UK, we don't even have paper money anymore, it's plastic... Maybe it's more of a USA skill issue, too?
I really hope Brother is telling the truth!
Same. My printer works fine, and I recently replaced my toner (went genuine because I found a decent deal), so I probably won't need another anytime soon.
That said, I will no longer be recommending them until this is cleared up. I won't be recommending against them though, because I don't know of a better company, but I'll just recommend people go to their local library or print shop or something and not deal with having a printer at home.
I got a 4 acre lot on Mars that I'm selling for cheap. You seem like a gulli...great fellow. $10k. Its pretty cheap right now because people don't known the real estate trend yet. I'm taking amazon cards.
They deny it was the firmware update. But not that something else has happened
I’ve had issues with colour but not B&W
I'm curious how this will go down in Australia. Seems like a pretty solid slam dunk refund, oh the product doesn't work as advertised anymore?
Cool, I've had this for 5 years and now I'd also like a full refund under Australian Consumer Law.
Motherfuckers.
(I don't actually own a printer)
I imagine they have some stupid note or sticker somewhere saying "to avoid damaging your printer only use genuine Brother replacement cartridges".
Then all they have to say is "we patched a bug where unverified 3rd party ink cartriges could erroneously be used and cause malfunction or damage to the product."
I found this help article where they say "Although not all non-genuine supplies may cause quality issues".
They said they recommend using theirs, but up until this they didn't say you couldn't.
Plus, it's been universally understood that you have been able to use third-party cartridges. I really think if you're persistent enough, you'd get a refund in Australia. Because else (in Victoria at least) you could take them to VCAT for like $70, which will cost them wayyy more in lawyer expenses than the price of a refund.
This is not legal advice, but I reckon a refund under Australian Consumer Law is extremely doable if they go down this path (for existing printers).
Yeah interesting find, and i agree plus you can always sic the ACCC onto them if they start being painful
So… when there is some controversy over an article in Lemmy it gets the strike though? How did this evolve?
If you read the article:
We are aware of the recent false claims suggesting that a Brother firmware update may have restricted the use of third-party ink cartridges. Please be assured that Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines.
So there’s no reason to leave an inflammatory and likely wrong title unchanged or otherwise without notation. The title is completely readable. I’m all for wrong information being flagged, and a strikethrough is a fine method of doing so.
We don't know if it's wrong though, we just have a statement from the company claiming it is. Now it's on the community to prove it.
It's potentially wrong. I guess we'll see in the coming weeks as people try to prove it one way or another.
That said, the allegation that old firmware isn't accessible is easy to verify and very troubling for Brother if true (what are they hiding?).
There is no official report of Brother doing what it’s accused of. Only a couple people having issues with a few cartridges, no analysis of whether the flaw was in the third party cartridge or an actual firmware issue, but we should get out the pitchforks and torches and leave a completely unproven statement up? I completely disagree. There’s too much BS passed off as objective truth as it is.
One or two reports could be chalked up to noise. Rossmann provided much more than that. I'm not saying he's right, I'm just saying there's sufficient evidence that I'm not just going to accept "nope, we don't do that."
We certainly need more evidence, and hopefully Rossmann's video reaches enough people to get it, one way or another. He has demonstrated admitting when he is wrong, and he has also demonstrated doing the research.
I doubt this is the last we hear about this, and I sincerely hope Brother is redeemed.
I see editability as generally an improvement, especially since the older versions are still visible with a couple of clicks. Reddit titles are not editable. Tweets used to be uneditable; toots are.
The original rationale for not having editing, at least on Reddit and Twitter, was concerns that someone could get a viral post, and then edit it to spam.
That's not an impossible thing with Lemmy, though we're not big enough for it to be worth spamming to, for the most part.
Totally agree. Just the first time I have seen the notation.
You can edit the title, so if you want to strike through it, go ahead.
Anyone have recommendations on thermal printers?
Any particular reason for going thermal? Personally, I'd recomnend against them, since thermal paper is coated with BPA, and that can come off and might have health effects if ingested.
I think it's because thermal requires no ink.
Why thermal? Seems odd, but alright.
I recommend laser for just about everyone.
Don't print much? Get a laser. Otherwise your ink will dry out and you'll have to get new ink every time you want to print.
Print a lot? Laser. Super reliable, can do tens of thousands of sheets before there's a problem, maybe more.
In fact, the only time I'd recommend an ink printer is for color accurate work like photo printing, and if you're not using photo paper for it, then there's not really much of a point, is there?
I used to think bubble jet/ink jet was the shit, then I started working in IT professionally and discovered the truth.
Just buy a laser printer folks. Don't bother with all the rest of this shit. If you want/need inkjet, then you already know you need it and why. If you're not sure, get a laser. You'll pay wayyyyyy less on materials to keep it running
Dot matrix is also an option, if they neither want to bother with toner, nor inkjet.
Just ribbons an print heads
My client has a few dozen zebras. Reliable, but cost a little more up front. Some of theirs are 10+ years old, prints thousands of inventory labels a month off each one at each site.
As much as I love the brand, this was just obviously going to happen. It always happens, it's the eventual outcome. All that is needed is one middle manager wanting to get an extra bones to come up with some short sighted idea that will make a little extra money in the short run and possibly bankrupt the company in the long term.
See Boeing, see Intel, see....
The only way to not have this happen is to get open source hardware. The open source eco system is amazing already but we need more focus on that, hardware. CPU's, Computers, printers, phones, everything
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My brother did what!?!?
"You were supposed to be the one"
"IT WAS SAID YOU WOULD DESTROY THE COMPETITION, NOT JOIN THEM"
I really wish we had open source 2D printers like we have open source 3D printers. That could solve a lot of the problems I think as we could have an open spec to allow people to do whatever they want. My Prusa doesn't care what brand filament I want to use, just as long it can drive it, melt it, and lay it down the way I need. Also why is it my 3D printers are more reliable than my 2D printers most days?
Can't a 3D printer double as a 2D printer? It'd only have to print one "slice"; you'd replace the heated nozzle with some sort of writing stick, hey presto instant plotter!
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