Comment on What are your favorite open source 3D printers?
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
If it counts, One of my friends in college had a bedslinger mish mash of like 4 different printers cobbled together to make a sort of bastard child prusa i3 equivalent. It actually made decent quality prints although it was pretty slow. That’s about as open source as you can get.
Coopr8@kbin.earth 1 day ago
If he didnt publish a build guide it's not open source hardware.
finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Documentation and open source are two orthogonal concepts. I’ve seen plenty of well-documented closed-source projects and just as many open-source projects with no documentation at all.
Coopr8@kbin.earth 1 day ago
How can hardware be open without build documentation? Unlike software which is infinitely replicable and open unless obfuscate, hardware is private by default as the method of construction is effectively the "source code" and can not generally be derived without direct access to the hardware in question and disassembly. Dissassembly without reassembly instructions can only derive vocational information, and reverse engineering is required to translate that to assembly instructions which themselves are likely to differ from the prior engineer's method.
Hardware is only open source if its assembly documentation is made openly available.
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
It’s open source if there is no proprietary tech, and every single components is replaceable from outside sources. I have owned several 3rd gen printers, and currently keep an Ender 5 Plus, heavily modded. I could replicate the machine without much trouble, and not running afoul of any laws. The whole machine is based on prior art.