This question comes up a lot. 2D printers are actually significantly more complex thans 3D printers. The rrason 3D printers game much later was a materials problem and the fact that there was already injection molding which gives much better results for production, which means it took a while for big players to see the value in it. Here is my further comment on another post:
"Tons of 2d printer challenges.
The ink jet head at a resolution of <50um (as opposed to 3d printing resolution of usually >200um)
Combined with printing on many different surfaces and such: cardstock, printing paper, glossy, weights, stickers, etc…
This project “cheated” (I mean that not in a negative way, tons of open source hardware projects use proprietary components, my own does too for now) by using a proprietary ready-mades printhead, which saves the most cost and effort of the whole machine, and is the component that causes the most issues, generally.
Is there a real need to have paper over plastic at this point? So many things now require a plastic piece. Not seeing where paper is still being used to retain records or utilized for gaskets… I suppose cardboard but even then not much has changed in that tech.
3D Printers that are turned into Pen Plotters is also a neat project.
A paper printer! Weird that open source 3d printers are more common than open source paper printers.
This question comes up a lot. 2D printers are actually significantly more complex thans 3D printers. The rrason 3D printers game much later was a materials problem and the fact that there was already injection molding which gives much better results for production, which means it took a while for big players to see the value in it. Here is my further comment on another post:
"Tons of 2d printer challenges.
The ink jet head at a resolution of <50um (as opposed to 3d printing resolution of usually >200um)
Combined with printing on many different surfaces and such: cardstock, printing paper, glossy, weights, stickers, etc…
This project “cheated” (I mean that not in a negative way, tons of open source hardware projects use proprietary components, my own does too for now) by using a proprietary ready-mades printhead, which saves the most cost and effort of the whole machine, and is the component that causes the most issues, generally.
I definitely want to try this out too."
https://feddit.nl/comment/20418339
Is there a real need to have paper over plastic at this point? So many things now require a plastic piece. Not seeing where paper is still being used to retain records or utilized for gaskets… I suppose cardboard but even then not much has changed in that tech.
3D Printers that are turned into Pen Plotters is also a neat project.
You’re completely right. I always give my colleagues financial documents printed in 3d. I don’t see why we still need paper.
character sheet
Battle maps!
Stratagems!