The Comprinter Is Back, and Now It Can Actually Print

A lot of makers tend to struggle under the weight of the belief that their creations need to be practical, while in reality some of the…

Cameron Coward
5 years ago

A lot of makers tend to struggle under the weight of the belief that their creations need to be practical, while in reality some of the most interesting projects are those that are done purely for the joy of making. One great example of that was Mason Stooksbury’s Comprinter, which was a silly project where he built a computer inside of a multi-function printer. Unfortunately, the “printer” portion of the Comprinter didn’t actually work. Now Stooksbury is back with Comprinter II, and it prints!

When we featured the original Comprinter back in May, we were charmed by the absurdity of the project. There is no practical reason to stuff a computer inside of a printer, which was what made it so appealing. But we, along with everyone who read about it, lamented that it couldn’t actually print. Fortunately, Stooksbury took that to heart, secured a new donor laptop and printer, and built the Comprinter II. Like the original, it’s a laptop that was disassembled and crammed into a multi-function printer, but this time it can print documents in all of their inkjet glory.

The printer Stooksbury used is an HP Envy 5660 that he received from a coworker. It’s a multi-function printer with a scanner bed, which is important for this build. The laptop is a Toshiba netbook, which is small and more easily squished into the small space available. Most of the Toshiba netbook’s parts are inside of the scanner bed and lid, including the LCD screen. That left the actual printing portion of the printer untouched so that it could still print. There was even extra room to add some RGB LED mood lighting. Stooksbury did encounter a jam caused by the positioning of the netbook’s power supply, but that was rectified by simply relocating it. The result is a fully-functional computer/printer combo that we would love to see someone using in a coffee shop.

Cameron Coward
Writer for Hackster News. Proud husband and dog dad. Maker and serial hobbyist.
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