The Open Source Openprinter Is Almost Here: A Repairable, DRM-Free Printer Headed to Crowd Supply

If there's one word universally associated with printers, it's frustration: pricey ink, cheaply made hardware, and designs that fight you at every turn when something breaks. The OpenTools Openprinter wants to flip that script, and it's about to hit crowdfunding platform Crowd Supply.

No DRM, no proprietary ink lockdown

The Openprinter is built around a simple but radical idea: a printer you actually own. It runs open-source firmware, has no DRM, and is designed for easy refills using standard, widely available cartridges. It works with a range of HP ink cartridges — including HP 63, HP 63 XL, HP 302, HP 302 XL, HP 803, and HP 803 XL — plus compatible third-party and refillable options. It also dodges the classic nonsense of 'I can't print black and white because I'm out of yellow': you can run it with just a black cartridge or just a color one.

Specs that matter to makers

Under the hood the Openprinter pairs a Raspberry Pi Zero W with an STM32 microcontroller on a cartridge board, and it speaks standard CUPS — no custom drivers required. Connectivity covers USB Type-C, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, and Bluetooth 4.1, with a USB Type-A port for PC-less printing straight from a flash drive. A small LCD and jog wheel handle menu navigation. On the page itself, it prints up to 600 DPI in black and white and 1200 DPI in color, handles paper up to A3, and accepts both standard sheets and A3-edged rolls.

Open everything — with one catch

Both the electronic and mechanical design are licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0. That means anyone can freely use and adapt the design for their own projects — provided they share their derivative work under the same license. A fully functional prototype has already been shown in a demo video, and because it uses off-the-shelf parts, repairs and upgrades stay practical rather than proprietary.

When and how to get one

Pricing hasn't been announced yet, and the Openprinter is listed as 'coming soon' rather than live. The team expects to land on Crowd Supply in the near future, at which point backers will get the first shot at a printer that treats users as owners instead of recurring-ink subscribers. For a 3D-printing community that already lives and breathes open hardware, a genuinely open paper printer is a quietly compelling companion device.