Thermal Printers Utilize Continuous Feed Paper Also Known as Tractorfeed Paper

Laser printers

How laser printers work: Toner is placed on an electrically charged rotating drum, the t oner (which is powder) is deposited on the paper... sounds simple, here are the 7 steps in laser printing do get a better realization of what is actually going on:

1. Processing image: bitmap of final page stored in memory
2. Conditioning: drum surface charged to -600 V
3. Writing: laser beam writes -100 V image to drum surface
4. Developing: toner applied to -100 V areas of the drum
5. Transferring: toner drawn off drum and onto paper
6. Fusing: heat and pressure fuse toner to paper
7. Cleaning: drum cleaned of residual toner and charge

(Andrews, 2014)

(Grahm, 2014)

Inkjet printers

Inkjet printers use ink-disbursement in its printing process. It doesn't provide the high-quality resolution laser printers can.

During the process the print head moves across the paper, one line of text created with each pass. The ink is applied to paper using a matrix of small dots.

Plates with magnetic charge direct path of the page and different types of inkjets use droplets of ink forming the different text/images. Most popular is the bubble-jet.
Comparing inkjet to laser printers:
Inkjets are usually slower
The images smudge on inexpensive paper
You can only use paper designed for inkjet printers
Replacement Ink can be very expensive

(Andrews, 2014)

(Hitachi, 2014)

Impact printers

Overview of impact printer technology: This printer creates a printed page by using some mechanism that touches or HITS the paper creating text. Pins are used to print a matrix of dots on the page, the pins shoot against a cloth ribbon and the ribbon impacts paper and deposits ink onto the paper.

Dot matrix printer technology advantages:
Continuous tractor feed allows event and data logging
Mostly used with carbon paper: print multiple copies, Payroll checks.

Extremely durable

Guidelines for maintaining print heads:
Keep the printer in a cool, well-ventilated area
Do not print over 50 to 75 pages without a cool down

(Andrews, 2014)

( Boyd, 2012)

Thermal printers

How they work: They use heat to create an image

Two types of thermal printers:

1.Direct thermal printer- that burns dots onto special coated paper (thermal paper). Often used as receipt printers

2.Thermal transfer printer-Uses a ribbon that contains wax-based ink, a heating element melts ribbon onto thermal paper. Used to print receipts, bar code labels, clothing labels, or container labels

Both are reliable and easy to maintain

(Andrews, 2014)

(VideoJet, 2015)

Solid ink printers

Definition of:solid ink printer

A laser-class printer that uses solid wax inks that are melted into a liquid before being used. Instead of jetting the ink onto the paper directly as inkjet printers do, solid ink printers jet the ink onto a drum. A better registration of color is obtained by transferring the ink to the drum first and then to the printer, because the drum can be more tightly controlled than moving paper.

Tektronix, Inc., whose color printer division was acquired by Xerox in 2000, pioneered the solid ink printer market with its crayonlike cartridges. When introduced in the mid-1990s, the color quality of the Tektronix printers was stunning, and its print speeds exceeded that of an equivalent-priced laser printer because it printed colors in one pass instead of four. In contrast, with laser printers, each of the four CMYK colors must be applied to a secondary accumulator drum one at a time before the image is transferred to paper. The Tektronix-developed technology applies a four-color solid ink mirror image onto the drum in one pass

Solid Ink Printhead
The solid wax ink is melted and turned into a liquid before it enters the plumbing of the printhead. The inks are typically jetted from the nozzles using the piezoelectric drop on demand method. The printhead in this example is as wide as the paper.

(Jaeger, 2015)

Printer features (Pasini, 2012)

Basic printer vocab YOU SHOULD KNOW
Dots per inch (dpi): This number defines how many dots the printer can fit onto a square inch of paper. The higher the maximum resolution, the more detailed an image the printer is capable of creating.
Engine speed: This number is usually expressed in pages per minute (ppm), and sometimes as characters (cpm) or images (ipm) per minute.
Internal memory: This spec will be expressed in kilobytes (KB) or megabytes (MB), if at all (most personal printers don't have any memory).
Monthly duty cycle: The specs for all business printers and most personal printers will include a number indicating the maximum number of pages the device can print per month without failing. The typical personal printer's duty cycle will be somewhere under 5000 pages, while a lower-end business printer will dwell in the 20,000-page range. Higher-end workhorses boast duty cycles of 100,000 or more pages.
Networking: An increasing number of personal printers have integrated wireless for use in a home, among several wireless connected computers. A business printer will have an ethernet connection so that it can function on a network; some models might also have wireless capability for use in an appropriately equipped small office.
Paper-handling features
Standard and optional input tray(s): The number of sheets your printer can take in its standard configuration should exceed the number of pages you print per day, a printer typically holds 100 to 150 sheets of paper in a single tray, usually with no upgrades available.
Multipurpose tray or manual feed slot: These features are designed to feed a single piece or a small quantity of thicker media, such as envelopes, through your printer. They are best for occasional use, as many require some fiddling before or after you print. If you want to print on a special stock all the time, look for a printer that can dedicate a tray to this task.
Duplexing: Two-sided printing, or duplexing, is a great feature because it can cut your paper costs in half and spare some trees. Some printers offer manual duplexing, with prompts that tell you how to rotate and reload the paper to print the second side; this approach is better than nothing, but it's a real hassle if you want to duplex all the time.

Automatic document feeder (ADF) A tray on top of the printer which you can use to scan, copy and fax (for printers with a fax function) multiple pages without having to feed them through one at a time.

Other useful features
Media-card slots and PictBridge ports: If you want to print photos on your inkjet, a model with integrated media slots or a PictBridge port provides convenience. But if you already have such ports on your computer, of course, you needn't bother duplicating them on your printer.
USB-A port: As mentioned in the Networking section, all printers have a USB port for connecting to a computer. The USB-A port is a separate connector that lets you insert a USB flash drive and print directly from the drive. It is sometimes combined with a PictBidge port for connecting a digital camera directly.
Operating system compatibility: All printers work on the PC platform, but not all models offer equal support for Macs and Linux. If you use multiple computer platforms in your environment, make sure that the printer has full-fledged drivers for all of them, and be sure to check for functionality differences.
Scanning features

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Many all-in-one printers also come with OCR software. This recognises text in scanned pages so you can edit the scanned text on your computer. Even if OCR software is not supplied, free OCR software downloads are widely available.

Connectivity features

Wi-fi-printer- with a wireless printer you can print from computer, laptop, smartphone and tablet.

AirPrint- You can quickly and easily print from Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch with an AirPrint compatible printer.

Cloud print- Some printers are compatible with cloud services, so you can share your printer with others if you want, or print via the cloud from a host of devices.

(Riofrio, 2015)

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Source: https://sites.google.com/site/tvcccis110sa0523/printer-types

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