User talk:JohnMc

Building an Open Source printer. Novel idea. However I am going to rain on the parade a little.

1) You won't make it any cheaper than any of the four majors do today.

2) You might be able to bend the consumable cost curve some.

3) Keep in mind that if you talk laser, many of the majors now have the toner shell coverered under DMCA. So you will also have to develop your own cartridge.

4) Developing inkjet is probably not worth it.

I worked with all the majors as the program manager on corporate wide print in a fortune 10 company. I know the cost curves, what it cost the companies to make the printers, etc. You won't improve on what they have already done.

So is this a lost cause? Quite frankly no. But you have to think freaking way out of the box on this. The two biggest cost factors are In large output volumes the cost of the printer becomes almost marginal. Something else to consider -- 80% of all paper is thrown away within the space of 6 months. Seldom is it the basis for archiving any more.
 * Paper
 * Ink.

That being the case, what if one could develop a 'printer' that did not use paper and ink? (I'll wait till the laugher dies down....) Seriously. You take E-Ink's current technology, marry it onto a paper thin white acetate. There are contact strips along the side and bottom. The sheets are reprintable. Used sheets are placed in the printer tray. The printer wipes the old data off the sheet and lays down the new information. Even if a sheet cost a $1 but got a 1000 uses that cheaper than the paper-ink paradigm. The printer itself becomes much simpler as the only positioning required is for the edge contacts. No complicated paper paths to worry about. There is no fuser components to wear out. No hot spots.

You could also develop the scanner in the same print device. The printer just reads the data stream back off the E-Ink. You store it where ever you need to. No tubes, no mechanical scan head, no issues with OCR.

Well that's it.

JohnMc 23:27, February 2, 2010 (UTC)JohnMc