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Is an output device that produces text and graphics on a physical medium such as paper or transparency film.

PREPARED BY : MOHD FADHIL BIN RAMLE

There are several types of printers:

1. 2. 3. 4. Impact printer. Bubble-jet printers. Laser printers (pages printers). Other printers.

The most basic printer. Use some form of impact and an inked ribbon to make an imprint on the paper. Like a typewriter. There are two major types of impact printers:
1. Daisy wheel 2. Dot matrix.

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Contain a wheel (called daisy-wheel because it looks like a daisy) with raised letters and symbols on each petal. When the printer needs to print a character, it sends a signal to the mechanism (printhead) that contains the wheel. The printhead rotates the daisy-wheel until the required character is in replace. An electromechanical hammer (called solenoid) then strikes the back of the petal containin the character. The character pushes up against an inked ribbon that ultimately strikes the paper, makin the impression of the requested character. A daisy-wheel printer mechanism
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Speed is rated by the number of characters per second (cps) they can print. Disadvantages:
The early printers could only print between two and four characters per second. The other advantage is that it makes a lot of noise when printing. Can print on multipart forms (like carbonless receipts). Inexpensive compared to the price of laser printer at the same vintage. The print quality (LQ) is comparable to that of a typewriter because it uses a very similar technology.

Advantages:

These printers work in a manner similar to daisywheel printers, but instead of a spinning, character-imprinted wheel, the printhead contains a row of pins (short, sturdy stalks of hard wire). These pins are triggered in patterns that form letters and numbers as the printhead move across the paper. The early dot-matrix printers used only nine pins to make those patterns. As more pins crammed into the printhead (17-pin and 24-pin models were eventually developed), the quality increased (Near Letter Quality).

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The pins in the printhead are wrapped with coils of wire to create a solenoid and are held in the rest position by a combination of a small magnet and spring. To trigger a particular pin, the printer controller sends a signal to the printhead, which energizes the wires around the appropriate print wire. This turns the print wire into an electromagnet, which repels the print pin, forcing it against the ribbon and making a dot on the printer.
Formation of images in a dot-matrix printer
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Disadvantages:
Image quality (draft quality) is quite poor compared to the quality produced with a daisy wheel.

Advantages:
Print speed is faster (typically in the range of 36 to 72cps). Can use multipart forms.

An advanced form of an older technology known as inkjet printers. Both types of printers spray ink on the pages, but inkjet printers used a reservoir of ink, a pump and an ink nozzle to accomplish this. Inkjet printer were messy, noisy an inefficient and bubble-jet printers work much more efficiently and are much cheaper. In a bubble-jet printer, bubbles of ink are sprayed onto a page and form patterns that resemble the items being printed.

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The printer parts can be divided into the following cateories.

Printhead/ink catridge. Head carriage, belt and stepper motor. Paper-feed mechanism. Control, interface and power curcuitry.

Contains many small nozzles (usually 100200) that spray the ink in small dots onto the page. Many times the printhead is part of the ink catridge, which contain reservoir of ink and the printhead in a removable package. Colour bubble-jet printers include multiple printhead, one for each of the CMYK print inks.

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Chamber Inside the ink cartridge are small chambers. At the top of each chamber are a metal plate and a tube leading to the ink supply. At the bottom of each chamber is a small pinhole used to spray ink on the page to form character and images as patterns of dots (similar to a dot-matrix printer but with higher resolution).

1.

There are two methods of spraying the ink out of the catridge. First developed by Hewlett-Packard (HP):
When a particular chamber needs to spray ink, an electrical signal is sent to to the heating element, energizing it. The elements heat up quickly, causing the ink to vaporize. Because of the expanding ink vapor, the ink is pushed out the pinhole and forms a bubble. As the vapor expands, the bubble eventually gets large enough to break off into a droplet. The rest of the ink is pulled back into the chamber by the surface tension of theh ink. When another drop needs to be sprayed, the process begins again.
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2.

Second method developed by Epson:

Use a piezoelectric element that flexes when energized. The outward flex pushes the ink from the nozzle; on the return, it sucks more ink from the reservoir.

Printhead carriage : moves back and forth during printing. Contains the physical as electronic connections for the printhead and the ink reservoir. To keep the printhead carriage aligned and stable, the carriage rests on a small metal stabilizer bar.

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A printhead carriage in a bubble-jet printer

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Stepper motor and belt make the printhead carriage move. Stepper motor:
Move in the same very small increment each time it is activated. Move the printhead. Called carriage motor or carriage stepper motor. Placed around two small wheels or pulleys and attached to the printhead. Called carriage belt, and driven by the carriage motor.

Belt:

A carriage stepper motor

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Pickup Rollers. Several rubber rollers with a slightly flat spot; they rub against the paper as they rotate, and feed the paper into the printer. Separator pads. Keep the rest of the paper in place. Paper Tray Holds the paper until it is fed into the printer. Paper Feeder The paper is placed vertically into paper feeder at the back of the printer; it uses gravity with combination with feed rollers and separator pads, to get the paper into the printer.
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Stabilizer bar, carriage belt, and pulley in a bubble jet printer

Bubble-jet pickup rollers

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Bubble-jet seperator pads

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Paper-Feed Sensor. Tell the printer when it is out of paper, as well as when a paper jam occurred during the paper feed process.

Paper-Feed Sensor

A paper tray on a bubble jet printer

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Printer control circuit. Contains the circuitry to run the stepper motors. Monitoring the health of the printer and reporting that information back to the PC Interface Circuit (commonly called a port).
Make a physical connection to whatever signal is coming from the computer (parallel, serial, SCSI, network, infrared and so on). Connect the interface to control circuit. Convert the signals from the computer into the datastream that the printer uses. Power Circuits. Convert 110V or 220V into 12V and 5V.
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Laser printers and inkjet printers are referred to as page printers because they received their printer job instructions one page at a time. Two major types of page printers:
Use the electrophotographic (EP) print process. Use the light-emitting diode (LED) print process.

Scientist at Xerox developed the electrophotographic (EP) process in 1971. Xerox, Hewlett-Packard and Canon were pioneer in laser printer technology. This technology uses a combination of static electric charges, laser light and a black powdery substance called toner.

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Basic Components Contains eight standard assemblies:

Toner cartridge Laser scanner High-voltage power supply DC power supply Paper transport assembly Transfer corona. Fusing assembly Controller circuitry Ozone filter.

Toner Cartridge Hold the toner. Toner = black carbon substance + polyster resins (to make it flow better) + iron oxide particles (to make the toner sensitive to electrical charges). This two components make the toner capable of being attracted to the photosensitive drum and of melting into the paper. Developer carries the toner until it is used by the EP process. Print Drum is coated with photosensitive material that can hold static charge when not exposed to light. Cleaning blade continuously scrapes the used toner off the photosensitive drum to keep it clean.
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Laser Scanning Assembly Shine particular area of the photosensitive drum. The drum will discharge but only in that area. The laser light is damaging to human eyes, therefore the laser is kept in an enclosure and will operate when the laser printers cover is closed.

An EP toner cartridge
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High-voltage Power Supply (HVPS) EP process requires high-voltage electricity. HVPS provide the high voltages during the EP process. Converts house AC current (120V and 60Hz) into higher voltages that the printer can use. This high voltage is used to energize both the charging corona and transfer corona.
The EP laser assembly (side view and simplified top view)
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DC Power Supply (DCPS) The high voltage cannot power the other components in the printer (the logic circuit and motors). Convert house AC current into +5VDC, 5VDC (for logic circuit) and +24VDC (for paper transport motor).

Paper Transport Assembly Moving the paper through the printer. Feed roller: D-shaped roller that rotates again the paper and pushes one sheet into the printer. Registration roller: there are two registration roller that synchronize the paper movement with the image-formation process.

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Transfer Corona Assembly Transfer corona is given a high-voltage charge which is transferred to the paper which pulls the toner from the photosensitive drum. Static eliminator strip: drain away the charge imparted to the paper by corona. Paper would stick to the EP cartridge and jam the paper if the charge didnt away. Two type of transfer corona assemblies:
Paper transport rollers Contains a transfer corona wire Contains a transfer corona roller

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The transfer corona assembly

Fusing Assembly Use two rollers that apply pressure and heat to fuse the plastic toner particles to the paper. Made up of three parts: a halogen heating lamp, a Teflon-coated aluminum fusing roller and rubberized pressure roller. Halogen lamp heat the fusing roller to between 165oC-180oC. As paper pass through the two rolles, the presure roller pushes the paper against the fusing roller which melts the toner into the paper.

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Printer Controller Circuit Converts signals from the computer into signal for various assemblies in the laser printer using process called known as

resterizing.
Formats the information into pages worth of line-by-line commands for the laser printer.
The fuser

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Ozone filter Ozone is a chemically reactive gas that created by the high-voltage coronas. Ozone can reduce the life of laser printers component. Ozone filter used to remove ozone gas. But, many newer laser printer dont have ozone filter because they done use transfer corona wires but instead use transfer corona roller.

Electrophotographic (EP) Print Process. 1. Cleaning 2. Charging 3. Writing 4. Developing 5. Transferring 6. Fusing

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STEP 1 : Cleaning Rubber blade inside EP cartridge scrapes any toner left on the drum. Fluorescent lamp discharge any remaining charge on the photosensitive drum.

The cleaning step of the EP process

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STEP 2 : Charging special wire or roller (called charging corona) within EP toner cartridge gets high voltage to apply strong, uniform negative charge (around -600VDC) to the surface of the photosensitive drum.

The charging step of the EP process

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STEP 3 : Writing Laser is turn on and scans the drum from side to side. The laser flashing on and off according to the bits of information. Wherever the laser beam touches, the photosensitive drums charge is severely reduced from -600VDC to a slight negative charge (100VDC). As the drum rotates, a pattern of exposed area is formed, representing the image to be printed. The writing step of the EP process

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STEP 4 : Developing Surface of drum holds an electrical representation of image to be printed.

The developing step of the EP process

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STEP 5 : Transferring The controller sends a signal to the charging corona wire or roller and tells it to turn on. The corona wire/roller acquires a strong positive charge (+600VDC) and apply that charge to the paper. The paper thus charged, pulls the toner from the photosensitive drum at the line of contact between the roller and paper, because the paper and have positive charge. Once the registration roller move the paper past the corona wire, the static-eliminator strip removes all charge from that linbe of the paper. The transferring step of the EP process
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STEP 6 : Fusing The toner image is made permanent. As the paper passes through the fuser, the 350oF fuser roller melts the polyester resin of the toner and rubberized pressure roller presses it permanently into the paper.

The fusing step of the EP process

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The EP print process

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Primarily developed by Okidata and Panasonic. There are two main differences between a LED page printer and a laser printer: toner cartridges and print process.

LED Page Printer Toner Cartridges Photosensitive drum/toner and toner separate and replaceable item. When replacing the photosensitive drum, you swing the photosensitive drum/toner cartridge out of the printer first. Filling the toner hopper is fairly easy.

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LED Page Printer Process Same process as a laser printer. Use a row of small light-emitting diodes held very close to the photosensitive drum to expose it. Each LED is about the same size as the diameter of the laser beam used in laser printers. Basically same as EP process printers except that in the writing step , they used LED instead of a laser. Benefit:
Cheaper Smaller not dangerous to eye

Disadvantages over laser printer

Resolution 800dpi Messier (because its slight static charge, toner isnt easy to removefrom surfaces).

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Printer Interface: collection of hardware and software that allows the printer to communicate with computer.
Hardware-port Interface software-correct software for the platform being used.

Communication Types Ports used in getting the printed information from the computer to the printer. Eight major type: serial, parallel, Universal Serial Bus (USB), network, infrared, SCSI, IEEE 1394 and wireless.

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SERIAL Send data one bit at a time. PARALLEL Receiving data 8 bit at a time over eight separate wires. Faster than serial Parallel cable consists of DB-25 connector that connects to the computer and a male 36-pin Centronics connector. Cable long less than 10 feetlong. Should be IEEE 1284 compliant.
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Universal Serial Bus (USB) Most popular type of printer interface. Higher transfer rate than either serial or parallel. Automatically recognizes new devices. NETWORK Some newer printers (laser and LED printers) have special interface that allows them to be hooked directly to a network. This printers have a network interface card and ROM based software that allows them to communicate with networks, servers and workstations.

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INFRARED Many laser printers (and some computer) come with infrared transmitter/receivers so that they can communicate with the infrared ports on many handhelds. The infrared interfaces are enabled by default on most computer, handhelds and printers. SCSI Only few types of printers use SCSI interfaces to the PC: laser printers, dye-sublimation printers or typesetters Benefit:
There could be more than one device on a single SCSI connection through daisy chaining. Fairly simple to implement. Had large throughput compared to other interfaces of time.

IEEE 1394 FIREWIRE .supports devices with a maximum throughput of 800MBps and is capable of speeds up to 3.2Gbps. WIRELESS Some printers have bulilt-in 802.11 interfaces or are hooked to 802.11 bridges with their built-in network cards. Another wireless technology is bluetooth with maximum range is 100 meters and most device work within 10meters.
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Need regular cleaning . The condition of both the platen and the print head direcly impacts print quality. If too much dried ink and print fiber gets jammed into the print head, the pins might not be ejected by the springs. Never send print job onto dot matrix printer when theres no paper installed. Both the print head and the platen need to be in proper alignment as well, if not, individual characters will shade from light to dark.
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Printer errors will generally fall under one of four categories:

1. 2. 3. 4. Communication errors. Processing errors Paper transport errors Imaging errors

1.

Communication error

Occur when computer cant find the printer. First thing to check is cable Bypass the driver by opening a command prompt and copying an ASCII tect file directly to LPT1.
As example:
i. open notepad, type out a few characters and save the file as C:\document\test.txt. ii. At command prompt, type copy C:\document\test.txt. LPT1 and see if the printer fires up and spits out the document.

If it does, you have physical connectivity to the printer. The problem is in the configuration. Reinstall the driver and use the correct one this time.

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2.

Processing Error
Occur when the data gets to the printer, but nothing but gobbledygook comes out. Frequently this is simply a corrupted printer driver and can be fixed easily by reinstalling driver. In laser printers, there are two other things that can cause this: bad memory and chip failure. Also cause by insufficient memory to process a given job.

3.

Paper transport error

Cause by paper jams or the paper not being picked up out of the delivery tray. Paper jam cause by rollers are smooth and medium not supported (too light or too heavy) by printer.

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4.

Imaging Errors
Cause by unwanted marks on the page, smearing, a totally black page, or skewed image. How to solve:
Pull the toner cartridge and in dim light open the shutter and rotate the imaging drum around.

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