Aight for those who didn't understand: Basically they use the laser to charge with positive energy certain parts of the cilinder, then they charge the toner dust with negative energy which makes it stick to the cilinder, then the dust sticks to the paper (it does that with every cartridge) and at the end the colors are fused to the paper by melting it.
@DrR1pper Actually, the "economies of scale" didn't tell you the whole truth: Laser printers can emit a large amount of micro-particles from those toners when printing, that you can breath and will get not just in your lungs but in most other organs too, with unknown consequences since obviously the big interests of those "economies of scale" didn't allow research and regulation of those emissions yet, despite the decades they exist on the market. www.abc.net.au/health/talkinghealth/factbuster/stories/2011/06/22/3249217.htm They also didn't tell you that you might get a color laser printer for $100, but you will have to pay multiple times more when you'll need to buy new toners, so the actual cost is just hidden. That's one way to get cheap technologies today, the other one is via cheap labor like in china with the suicide nets in their inhuman factories -someone else is paying the cost. Bottom line: We need far more than "economies of scale"...
"Economies of scales" is referring only to the cost of the item being purchased of course, not the secondary costs (monetary or otherwise) that it may incur.
Very helpful, watched a 20 minute video on Laser printers with absolutely no graphics and a white board with a dull Expo marker. Thanks for making this video, visualization helps.
For anyone that doesn’t really get it here’s what I got: The printer pretty much creates an image with a laser on to a rolling pin thing. This attracts the ink. The paper then passes over the rolling pin which effectively places the ink on the paper This process occurs for each colour (I think) Then to make it smooth it goes through a tighter roller to press it to the paper
The fact that you can use the money you make in like... a week if you're working class or a few days if you're middle class... to buy a machine like this... is nothing short of unbelievable. The fact that our technology is so advanced that 99% of us don't even know 99% of it works. I mean think back to medieval times... everyone knew how everything worked. Now... we don't. It literally might as well be magic... but we accept it. Crazy shit.
See, what we call magic today is what future folks will think is the simplest thing ever. Back then, if they didn't know how something worked they really did call it magic.
Very clever.With good quality paper (smooth finish) one can get EXCELLENT quality images - even with photos - and laser printers are not expensive. A WIN-WIN for everyone.
There's a big evolution in the making by recycling in the printer itself unused toner (the one that didn't stick to the paper) in order to put it back in the cartridge and thus giving more prints per cartridges. This will be ecological and will allow for less bulky printers since a waste container won't be needed anymore.
I just got an older laser printer someone threw out to replace our old ink one, it sucked and had tons of issues, and damn does it work better. Very interesting to see how it's internals work.
Wonderful machine, got so fed up with ink printers, nozzles clogging, drying out, etc. (not using original ink maybe didn't help to frustration). Laser printer just goes and goes, and fast!. never dries out, print doesn't smuge when a little wet. And on mine atleast i keep printing past when it says 0% toner left, using it all, not being hindered.
When i use such devices i always think by who and when this all was invented? Who was that smart to make this? Is there any history with names, scientists etc who made it happen? Things do not come by theirselves. Somebody must have thinked alot for this printer to born.
You might be interested in this, it's from an old show called the Secret Life of Machines, and it goes over the history of the photocopier and who came up with the technology... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-S2NIAD5qn7E.html
Yeah it's recorded en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerography Chester Carlson and Pál Selényi are the ones attributed for the basic process and Xerox for automating it. Names of people who were involved with the last effort can probably be found on patent applications.
So it is the same process as in black and white laser printers except that color printer uses multiple toner cartridges and the paper moves and collects the toner from each cartridge, before going into the fuser. Got it, thanks. I thought this would be a lot more complicated.
I have heard some contradictions on this. In my textbook it claims that the laser knocks off the negative charge on organic photo conductor. Then when the negative toner is applied to the drum it is repelled by the remained negative charges and attracted to the neutral space on the drum.
Google that exact phrase "alkis - humanizing technology", it's the first link from audiojungle. I'm in the US, so idk if that would affect whether or not results would be different for you if you are from another country.
Thank you for the question! Printers can be designed to use positively or negatively charged toner, but not both. HP® designs their systems around negatively charged toners while some other manufacturers opt for a positive charge. Understanding the polarity of the charge is just the first step. The strength or degree of charge is critical and widely variable from system to system.
+Static Control Is the paper positively charged to attract the negatively charged toner? If so, can toner be removed by applying a positive charge to repel the particles? How can one go about applying charges?
The paper is not positively charged. There is an electrostatic transfer belt (ETB) in the printer that uses a positive charge to attract the toner from the OPC to the paper. It is visible near the beginning of the video (approx. 00:11). During printing, the paper is conveyed in between the ETB and the OPC drum with the toner image transferring directly to the paper. The toner particles are then fused onto the paper. So no, you could not repel the toner particles once they have been melted to the page.
I get it TLDR it uses negatively charged ink is attracted to the more positively charged specific surfaces making them stick, then it does the process over again on all the other ink until the image is formed.
So basically it's doing it in the same methodology as an actual printing press where they use engraved drums to physically press the image in different stages for different colors and keeping it all lined up in order to create a color image. But the difference is the method of applying toner to the drum is done electrostatically instead of physical chemical adhesion like with ink.
I have that HP printer. It's terrible because it didn't have a sealed optical path so dust would settle on its optics, eventually the prints to looked faded because it wasn't exposing the roller well. It's about a 2 hour job to open it up and clean it and it's good for another 500-1000 pages. I quit using it because it's just not worth it.
Can you use aftermarket toner with black and white / color laser printers and with black and white if tonwe spills their won't be a problem because they don't have TB(transfer belts) like color Lazer printer that can break. How do you clean it up though?
Any simple yet explanatory description on how the precise color mixing works? His does the charge determine the precise amounts of certain colors to be attracted to the point such that after melting the color gets just right?
It doesn't blend the colors like you are thinking. Instead it dithers them, the same as your color TV. If you were to look at the print with a microscope you would see dots of only the CMYK colors, not the thousands of colors you are thinking. When those dots are arranged in the proper proportions your brain interprets them into the desired colors. That's the same way color TVs work with the RGB guns and posphers, there are really only those three colors on the screen and they are not blended. The blending happens inside your brain. Also the intensity of the printed dots is not varied the way you are thinking. Each dot is 100% intensity, so the laser doesn't need need to apply "a precise (varying) amount" like you are saying. It applies a precise amount, one dot, but it doesn't vary. Inkjets also work the same way. Some recent more advanced models can vary the size of the dot, but that's not how it's traditionally done.
Thank you for the cool video. Does this mean that the toner ink is most likely unsuitable for the compost pile? I ask because I have a lot of used paper with toner ink on it and would like to put it into my compost pile since the paper is a source of carbon. However, I'm wary since the inks are probably not food safe since they must be charged so there must be some metallic component? Are plant-based inks never used in laser printers?
Thank you for the question! There is only a small percentage of toners that contain plant-based resins - which makes up for about 80% of the formulation. The other 20% is basically the same regardless if the toner is plant-based or not. The polymers used in the non-plant based toners are non-toxic. We aren’t experts on compost piles, but we think it would be safe to use. It is highly unlikely that the toner will break down into the compost. However, we encourage you to check with a compost expert in order to get their opinion.
like static control said the toner wont break down making it unsuitable for your compost. similarly u dont put spoons or plastic which dont break down in your compost
Static Control - could you explain me what exactly makes the toner transfer from ETB to paper? The paper is electrostatically neutral, right? ETB is positively charged to attract image from negatively charged OPC. So how the toner is transferred onto the paper sheet? thx!
Did you find out by now. The paper also has a positive charge and the toner transfers to the paper. Then the paper is discharged, becomes neutral, before entering the fuser.
