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The Open Printer Is a Raspberry Pi Zero W-Powered, Fully-Open, Highly-Flexible Inkjet Printer (www.hackster.io)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/opensource@programming.dev
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[–] 4 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I can see by down votes not a popular opinion, but I'd pay over $1k for an open source laser printer with Brother's reliability.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    I'm all for open source laser, and lasers are great for some things, but they're trash for photo printing for instance. Inkjets are brilliant for lots of stuff.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Unless you're a professional printing hundreds of photos and buy the proper industrial printer, it's always cheaper to take your photos to a store and have them printed there than deal with your own inkjet. Budget inkjets are a waste, through and through.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Or sometimes it's nice to have a good inkjet so you can print stuff on a whim, or tweak the colours if they don't turn out right. You can pick up a good inkjet for well under £500, it's not outrageous for a hobby. Regardless, inkjets have their place.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    If you rarely print, your cartridges dry out and the cost of replacing those is more expensive than if you just went to the store for the few prints you do. But if you're willing to pay for convenience, I understand, but that's all your paying for, not quality or reliability or consistency, especially with a >£500 printer. That's still in beginner/budget territory.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I can't say I've ever had many issues with Canon's PRO line and I'm aware of a few pro photographers who use them, certainly putting them at the same level as an entry level inkjet or laser seems a bit disingenuous. Definitely more expensive than one-offs at a good print shop, but as I say it's a hobby - finding time to get to a good print shop while they're actually open can take weeks which is next to useless in some cases.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I just bought my parents a Brother HLL3280CDW color laser printer and printed some pretty colorful graphics and omg the color quality was straight up tra—fine actually, good actually?

    I was pretty surprised because I tend to see posts talk about how horrible laser color printers are and my experience seems to be exactly the opposite. At least on this Brother printer, printing big color charts, graphics, with full color backgrounds and patterns, seems great. I can't tell the difference between laser and inkjet.

    they’re trash for photo printing

    I haven't tried this yet, but maybe one of these days I'll buy some glossy photo paper and try printing photos. I'll have to report back.

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