this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2025
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2d printers already print yellow dots which contain information about the printer for tracking purposes.
The question isn't whether a manufacturer would play ball (or be compelled to) it's whether it's possible to do in a way where the information persists and doesn't compromise the functionality of the print.
I think it's bad, to be clear. I just think it's not unreasonable to imagine manufacturers including that capability from the factory.
Which manufacturers are you talking about? The ones making the electronics without firmware? The open source firmware which anyone can install or modify? The open source web interface that anyone can install or modify? The open source slicers where anyone can use any slicer they wish to (and also are used to generate gcode used on multiple different machines)?
There is simply no point in this chain where something like this would be enforceable
Except 3d printing has a much bigger open source community than 2d printers have.
There's already software out there that can optimize the output file of a slicer - effectively rewriting the gcode. Removing any watermarks at the code level seems pretty trivial, even if every single slicer company relented and added this function