[BRLTTY] Open-source refreshable Braille displays?

[rjaquiss at earthlink.net]

Hello tim:

 

     I would agree that an open source braille display would be of interest. The complexities of creating one are quite daunting. I know of no hobby 3d printers that could create the small parts with the tight tolerances required. I have seen some parts made by an EOS 3d printer from Germany, but the price is in the range of $200,000. There are also the problems of fabricating actuators and the related circuitry.

I was a member of the National Federation of the Blind’s Committee for Research and Development. We would hear of people with ideas for new braille displays, but their projects failed due to the complexities involved.

 

Regards,

Robert

 

 

 

From: BRLTTY <brltty-bounces at brltty.app> On Behalf Of Tim Böttcher
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2025 2:20 PM
To: brltty at brltty.app
Subject: [BRLTTY] Open-source refreshable Braille displays?

 

Hi,

 

I don't want to turn this email into a rant, but I'm a power user of refreshable Braille displays--due to my deafblindness, they're my only means of accessing my various computers, RaspBerry pis, phones etc--and the sad truth is that they're just not fit for intensive use without requiring maintenance every 6 to 12 months; I don't expect them to survive falling out of a plane mid-flight, the way an iPhone once miraculously did (see: Door blow-out on an Alaska airlines flight), but it would be just splendid if they could handle a bit of water, or the skin particles that we all, inevitably, shed while using them.

 

I've started religiously cleaning my refreshable braille displays with a micro fiber cloth in hopes this'll slow down the eventual, inevitable breakdown of pins and it seems to help--but not prevent the issue.

 

Somebody ended up on Hacker News recently with a 3D-printed keyboard;  there's also this link, albeit it's rather old and looks like it never really got finished properly: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:90144 But the point is that creating your own Braille display and fiddling with it to figure out a setting that works better for you *should* be possible, given the general know-how.

 

Are you aware of any efforts of open-source construction of Braille displays via 3D-printers? I'm starting to lose faith that the manufacturer industry at large will ever properly address the needs of users who, like me, use the braille displays daily for long stretches of time... (Important disclaimer: I'm not saying all braille displays are bad; there are many models that I like and many with really cool features, but all of those I used, without exception, have sooner or later exhibited problems such as keys or pins breaking.)

 

Many thanks for any input on this.

 

Kind regards,

Tim

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