Science Of Laser Printing - Science Article

By:Michael Stollery

Some people are not aware of what it takes to transfer a color image to a piece of copy paper. They might be familiar with the concepts that were used when people used dot matrix printers. How hard is it to imagine a ink cartridge moving back and forth to get characters on a piece of paper?

The daisy chain printers were much easier to understand because the letter spun around on a cartridge to produce the letters on the paper. Being able to see the progress of the printing job as it moved across the paper, line by line, used to be very comforting for some office workers.

The only comfort people get with laser printers is the calm that comes with pressing the printer icon on the word processing program. They are unable to view the product as it prints, and must wait patiently for it to go through the entire printing cycle to see if the image printed properly for their individual needs or taste. Some people might question the time it takes to produce a laser print on paper.

What they might not understand is that when a color image button is pressed, the machine must go through a required sequence to produce a duplicate colored image on copy paper. The colored image must pass through a main process that uses electrically charged drums to produce the color image, with separate drums performing a task for each color. This explains why some color cartridges have colors that are empty, and still have two or three that could still be used.

Each of these drums will be positively charged with electricity and since they are made out of a material that is photo conductive, it will leave areas void of charge when it is exposed to the light of a laser. The machine literally draws the image on each of these drums. As the drums turn inside the laser printer they will pick up the particles of the dry toner and it will adhere to the areas that were exposed to the laser light.

Some people may have cleared a jam in their laser printer at times and been astounded to find that the letters rubbed off the page when rubbed with a fingertip. This is because the laser printing process has not been completed and the letters will not adhere to the paper until it has been finished. The same problem would exist if you were trying to iron labels onto a shirt. Each of these processes requires a heating element to be applied in order to affix the image.

Out of view in the laser printing case are two rollers. These rollers will usually be made of heat resistant rubber or highly polished metals. In order for the laser toner to adhere to the paper, each piece of paper must pass through these rollers before the paper will exit the laser printer case with the correct image. These rollers melt the letters onto the paper because they are extremely hot, and can cause severe burns, so any paper jams in this area should be removed by a qualified technician.

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Article keywords: printer cartridges, inkjet cartridges, laser printers, colour laser printers

Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

Easyinkz are a UK retailer of printer cartridges and printer & inkjet cartridges visit http://www.easyinkz.co.uk for all your printng needs.

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