My Dad worked on some of the early HP inkjet printers and I remember him coming home and excitedly talking about tiny pockets in an array that they they figured out they could heat up until the ink boiled and squirted a little bit out. He talked about capillary action and surface tension and how it all meant they could make the whole thing with no moving parts at all. It was really fun to watch evolve.
The Nikon Small World in Motion competition, which only recently ended, was troubled by the prize winner being AI generated (3 points, 24 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49934521
> Dr Xu, an optical engineering researcher at the National University of Singapore, reportedly responded to the LinkedIn post. According to Nature, Dr Xu accepted that he had used an AI model to assist with post-processing but denied breaking the rules of the competition, which clearly state that “AI-generated videos are not permitted.”
> “It was applied afterwards to the reconstructed grayscale data to distinguish and color structures with similar morphology,” he wrote.
> However, Dr Xu’s messages on the LinkedIn post can’t be found as of today (October 1), and his LinkedIn profile now appears to have been deleted entirely.
> Scientists have repeatedly said that the issue could be resolved if Dr Xu shares his RAW grayscale video.
I have the Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 printer and have found it to be excellent for printing photos. It prints up to A3+ size (13" x 19") and ink costs are low since it uses tanks, which can be refilled using ink bottles, vs cartridges. The main caveat is that it uses dye inks which theoretically don't have the longevity of pigment inks, but for my purposes (family photos and photo club competitions) it doesn't matter.
Yes, even very high end printers like an Epson p5370 - https://luminous-landscape.com/the-epson-sc-p5370-printer/
"The printhead is the same relatively maintenance-light device that P900 owners (and predecessor P3880/3800 owners) really appreciate. These heads don’t clog much unless you leave the printer idle over long intervals and/or sit the printer in a very dry environment."
> Has printing quality improved?
Depends on the printer? A professional inkjet is extremely high quality these days.
>Or are they still a bag of hurt we should all just hope for better and cheaper colour laser / LED printer.
In a distant past I was tech support help desk person, which included poking the many color laser printers we had. They also actually broke all the time :(
The key is using it, but…not too much…. I bought a inkjet printer and run maybe 10k pages through it, after i let it sit for 3 weeks it was basically unusable: clogged nozzles, misalignment. After working with riso printers for 10 years, I didnt feel the urge to fix it or have it repaired.
I've long had an idea that I should get my home automation to just print _something_ every couple of weeks to stop it clogging up.
It was recently fully clogged (Epson EcoTank) and I managed to get it back to fully printing after about 10 rounds of head cleaning, so it's not a huge deal, but how many home printers are really printing regularly these days.
Ours gets used maybe once per quarter, and I actively encourage the kids to just photocopy, in colour, random stuff whenever they want to be sure it doesn't just clog up.
With all of the DRM nonsense around printers and authorized print cartridges, I'm kind of shocked the cartridge doesn't also have something that prevents printing if not in an authorized printer.
Not being part of a printer have anything to do with why the print looks bad? Like the thing he created to get the print head to spray ink isn't the same drivers and that's just a PoC to make the project possible? If this is just an extension cable from an actual printer, the quality looks janky to what I'd expect from modern ink jets.
There's been controllers for all sorts of common cartridges for a long time, a lot of low end UV printers all use a specific Epson cartridge that they run their own plumbing and electronics for. The end result of the device looks almost hand made a lot of the time, it's an XY plotter with a gigantic expensive print head on the end. https://www.amazon.com/mew/dp/B0FF93HB2Whttps://www.ebay.com/itm/397039456738
No, that is "bubble jet". Inkjets are proper resonant squirts, usually piezo driven.
And, for that reason, inkjets work with a much wider variety of liquids. Taken to the extreme, you have full color 3d prints with incredible precision: https://youtu.be/4IkvzMJihuY
The Epson Stylus 440 (640?) we had in the family when I was a child was the first time I encountered this piezoelectric effect in technology. Back then you'd get all these paper manuals (or at least we did in India).
I think the little pictures they drew were quite descriptive:
Boy, there was so little content in those days. You didn't have the whole Internet so we used to actually read manuals for entertainment hahaha.
Thank you for your link. That's a sick resin printer from Mimaki. How cool that they started out as a 2D printer company and decided to just layer things up!
My Dad worked on some of the early HP inkjet printers and I remember him coming home and excitedly talking about tiny pockets in an array that they they figured out they could heat up until the ink boiled and squirted a little bit out. He talked about capillary action and surface tension and how it all meant they could make the whole thing with no moving parts at all. It was really fun to watch evolve.
Super cool :)
No discussion, but this is from the Nikon Small World competition (4 points, yesterday) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50234796
The Nikon Small World in Motion competition, which only recently ended, was troubled by the prize winner being AI generated (3 points, 24 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49934521
> Dr Xu, an optical engineering researcher at the National University of Singapore, reportedly responded to the LinkedIn post. According to Nature, Dr Xu accepted that he had used an AI model to assist with post-processing but denied breaking the rules of the competition, which clearly state that “AI-generated videos are not permitted.”
> “It was applied afterwards to the reconstructed grayscale data to distinguish and color structures with similar morphology,” he wrote.
> However, Dr Xu’s messages on the LinkedIn post can’t be found as of today (October 1), and his LinkedIn profile now appears to have been deleted entirely.
> Scientists have repeatedly said that the issue could be resolved if Dr Xu shares his RAW grayscale video.
Ouch once you go dark really seems like you're guilty. NUS will not be happy with this guy if he can't come clean.
It’s ambiguous wording. To me, his work is “clearly” NOT “AI-generated”, and if only based on that, he’s right.
Fascinating images. The article linked by the parent has some info https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/10/meet-the-2026-winner...
His website is https://www.macrofying.com/ which is mostly links to the usual image/video sharing sites.
https://xxcancel.com/macrofying/status/2112904628509528219
Not sure if that's bubble jet or inkjet, but I think inkjets are very very cool!
For a deep dive of inkjets, there's a conference that posts talks: https://youtube.com/@theijc
And, a shallower dive of the complexities of inks is the great "engineerguy": https://youtu.be/-DckWNwE7R4
I initiated some small talk with a guy at a security conference once. Turned out he was an ink DRM expert at one of the big companies.
Interesting convo but I didn’t invite him to drinks later that evening.
ok
I love seeing everyday technology at this scale
While this is fascinating, I am sitting here wondering if anything has improved in the Inkjet printer world.
Does it still clog up? There are many be one or two more refillable ink printers but are they good? Has printing quality improved?
Or are they still a bag of hurt we should all just hope for better and cheaper colour laser / LED printer.
I have the Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 printer and have found it to be excellent for printing photos. It prints up to A3+ size (13" x 19") and ink costs are low since it uses tanks, which can be refilled using ink bottles, vs cartridges. The main caveat is that it uses dye inks which theoretically don't have the longevity of pigment inks, but for my purposes (family photos and photo club competitions) it doesn't matter.
Keith Cooper on YouTube has lots of informative videos about the ET-8550: https://www.youtube.com/@KeithCooper/search?query=8550
> Does it still clog up?
Yes, even very high end printers like an Epson p5370 - https://luminous-landscape.com/the-epson-sc-p5370-printer/ "The printhead is the same relatively maintenance-light device that P900 owners (and predecessor P3880/3800 owners) really appreciate. These heads don’t clog much unless you leave the printer idle over long intervals and/or sit the printer in a very dry environment."
> Has printing quality improved?
Depends on the printer? A professional inkjet is extremely high quality these days.
>Or are they still a bag of hurt we should all just hope for better and cheaper colour laser / LED printer.
In a distant past I was tech support help desk person, which included poking the many color laser printers we had. They also actually broke all the time :(
I used to have to manage color laser at work. Really expensive to run, powder fucking everywhere, and yes usually broken after a year.
After 3 printers it was not hard to persuade them to go B&W
The technology has improved quite a bit. The experience of owning one? That's a different story
The key is using it, but…not too much…. I bought a inkjet printer and run maybe 10k pages through it, after i let it sit for 3 weeks it was basically unusable: clogged nozzles, misalignment. After working with riso printers for 10 years, I didnt feel the urge to fix it or have it repaired.
I've long had an idea that I should get my home automation to just print _something_ every couple of weeks to stop it clogging up.
It was recently fully clogged (Epson EcoTank) and I managed to get it back to fully printing after about 10 rounds of head cleaning, so it's not a huge deal, but how many home printers are really printing regularly these days.
Ours gets used maybe once per quarter, and I actively encourage the kids to just photocopy, in colour, random stuff whenever they want to be sure it doesn't just clog up.
Sounds like someone needs to make an app that just prints out a calendar page or newspaper front page every morning to keep things flowing...
With all of the DRM nonsense around printers and authorized print cartridges, I'm kind of shocked the cartridge doesn't also have something that prevents printing if not in an authorized printer.
Not being part of a printer have anything to do with why the print looks bad? Like the thing he created to get the print head to spray ink isn't the same drivers and that's just a PoC to make the project possible? If this is just an extension cable from an actual printer, the quality looks janky to what I'd expect from modern ink jets.
There's been controllers for all sorts of common cartridges for a long time, a lot of low end UV printers all use a specific Epson cartridge that they run their own plumbing and electronics for. The end result of the device looks almost hand made a lot of the time, it's an XY plotter with a gigantic expensive print head on the end. https://www.amazon.com/mew/dp/B0FF93HB2W https://www.ebay.com/itm/397039456738
The printer is subsidized by the price of the cartridge. If you want to pay the hardware subsidy without getting any hardware, they're fine with that.
It's quite amazing technology. I wonder how they managed to make ink which dries fast on paper but doesn't dry and clog up the print head.
cool
AI slop picture i swear. Inkjet heads essentially boils ink to jet (see?) it out of tiny nozzels. Never drips like that.
Yes i didn't bother reading the caption.
No, that is "bubble jet". Inkjets are proper resonant squirts, usually piezo driven.
And, for that reason, inkjets work with a much wider variety of liquids. Taken to the extreme, you have full color 3d prints with incredible precision: https://youtu.be/4IkvzMJihuY
The Epson Stylus 440 (640?) we had in the family when I was a child was the first time I encountered this piezoelectric effect in technology. Back then you'd get all these paper manuals (or at least we did in India).
I think the little pictures they drew were quite descriptive:
https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/File:Screenshot_-_Epson_Tech...
https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/File:Screenshot_-_Epson_Manu...
Boy, there was so little content in those days. You didn't have the whole Internet so we used to actually read manuals for entertainment hahaha.
Thank you for your link. That's a sick resin printer from Mimaki. How cool that they started out as a 2D printer company and decided to just layer things up!
If you scroll down a bit, you can see more realistic looking videos.