You are here: Before you buy a laser printer - How laser printer works-2

                           Before You buy a Laser printer.

How laser printer works:

Laser printers are now considered to be the standard for the busy working environment. But as the price continues to go down, so the laser printers gain a greater acceptance among home and personal users alike. But before you buy your next laser printer we strongly advice you to read our free laser printer buying guide, so you will have much more confidence in choosing the right laser printer. Or see How inkjet printers work?

The technology behind Laser Printers

While impact and thermal technologies require the print head to actually contact the page surface in order to print, laser printing, just like inkjet printing is a non-impact process. Which means that Laser printers never contact the surface of the printed media. 

Laser Printers have enjoyed a reputation as the ideal tool to have in an office or home office environment. They offer high-quality print, using a method similar to that of a photocopier.   With a photocopier, a page is scanned with the familiar bright light, while laser printers substitute the light source with a laser.

When a file is sent to the printer, laser beams scan the surface of the photosensitive drum to sketch the desired letters and illustrations by discharging static electricity.

The photosensitive drum is generally considered to be the heart of the laser Printer.    

It is coated with a non-toxic compound that will conduct electricity when exposed to light.

The printers optical system focuses the laser beam onto this photosensitive drum, cause static discharge when applied.  Then it develops the image by rolling the printer paper through a reservoir of toner, (Sort of a dry powder ink), which is adheres to the charged image on the drum, (in the shape of the electrostatic charge) and after that transferred to the paper. The final step: Heat is applied with pressure  to melt and tightly fix the toner to the paper.

With monochrome lasers, this process takes place once but with color laser printers it is needed for all the other color components of the print.

 Before the new printing series can begin, the photosensitive drum must be cleaned and electrically erased; otherwise images would overwrite and superimpose each other. This is achieved with a rubber cleaning-blade that is applied to gently rub away any remaining toner from the previous image.

Printing in monochrome is much faster than color on a few models, because with color printing the printer has to lay down each individual color in separate passes. The print modes may be different, such as one-pass, two-pass, or four-pass operation.

However, newer Laser printer models are able to print even in color in one single pass.  Single-pass lasers can print in color at almost the same speed as monochrome lasers can.

When a laser printer receives data from the computer to print, it takes 5 to 30 seconds to prepare the printer to print a new job.

The past 15 years have seen some significant advances in Laser printing technology.

Laser printing continues to make technology progress not only in print quality, cost performance, color printing capabilities and product functionality, but also with the employed technology itself.

Until recently, Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) were just the little lights that indicated that your printer was on. Today the situation is a little different. Over the past few years, printer manufacturers have looked at how to make LEDs bigger and brighter, so that they can replace the traditional laser beams in their Laser printers.  So the developments of new types of LED printers had begun. LED printers use the same primary method of applying toner to the paper but these new printers are replacing lasers with bars of light emitting diodes to direct light as needed. LEDs are basically diodes that are producing light while electricity is flowing through them. LED printers are using this light source instead of the conventional laser beam.

 The technology of LED lighting has greatly improved over the last few years and is constantly dropping in price.

The other major difference is that LED printers utilize tandem- printing technology, which makes LED printers faster yet much cheaper. An abundant number of LED laser printers feature Single Pass Color Digital Technology, compared to a four-pass process used by most laser color printers. Color LED printers have four rows of LEDs (one each for magenta, cyan, yellow and black toners). 

The paper-feed procedure of LED printers is also different from that of the conventional laser printers. Paper is fed into a LED printer at a straight angle, while it is bent slightly when loaded into a laser printer. The bending process frequently causes paper jams in laser printers.

Advantages of LED printers

Since LED printers have less moving parts, these printers tend to be longer lasting and may also be less expensive than their laser counterparts. Seeing as LED technology leads to less paper-jam problems, LED printers have more output solutions and applications than  ink jets or laser printers usually have. 

 LED printers are capable of handling very high volumes of print jobs and are able  to print with the same or close to the same quality as most laser printers can.                                                                                                                

Next Page:                                                                                                        

Learn the benefits of Monochrome Laser Printers                           

Previous Page: Introduction to Laser Printers      

Related articles:

• How inkjet printers work?  
• The true Cost of printing. Cost per page of printers.

THE BEST PRINTER SUPPLIES ON THE NET ↓

Our Printer supplies are not only made up from cartridges and ink...

• Inkjet cartridges for Lexmark, HP, Epson, Compaq, Canon

• HP Inkjet Cartridges. Save up to 75% off + FREE Shipping offer!

• All types of inkjet, photo, matte and Epson Photo papers.

• Save 70% on your ink with Refill kits for all Major Brands.

• Coupons and combo deals on all types of ink cartridges.

Newsletter: Learn more with 1PrinterSupply.com and be informed of  the latest promotions. Plus ,many more benefits to sign up for our free newsletter. Sign Up Now! + You will receive an extra 15 % savings from your next purchase!   - Your Name   - Your Email Address

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                          Back To Top