What is a Laser Printer

Introduction to the Concept of Laser Printer

If you are wondering what is a laser printer and why is it the most common printing equipment, then read the piece of information given below.

Laser printers are one of the most commonly seen printing devices in every office in today's world. The reason behind this is that laser printers are printing machines that produce high resolution printouts, through the application of xerographic printing process.

What is a Laser Printer Output Speed?

Laser printers have an amazing speed of generating printouts. A standard quality laser printer can produce about 40 prints in a time span of 60 seconds. Laser printers are available is varying sizes and their printing capacity also differs. A small sized laser printer can print about 5-7 pages per minute, whereas a medium capacity laser printer can generate almost 50 pages in one minute and a high capacity laser printer, which is mostly used when there are printouts to be given in bulk quantities quite often, prints approximately 500-1000 pages per minute.

With advancement in technology, laser printers have improved a lot. Along with the basic idea of producing high quality prints, laser printers today also have the facility of 3-hole punching and stapling. Moreover, duplex printing which enables the user to print on both the sides of the page, helps in saving a lot of paper.

History of Laser Printers

It was in the late 1960s, that a researcher called Gary Starkweather working with Xerox, invented the laser printer. However, laser printers came into mainstream commercial application quite later in the mid 1970s. In those days, the principal application of laser printers was to print official documents such as invoices in bulk quantities and laser printers were successful doing that.

Mechanism of Laser Printers

Transfer of Data
The very first step in laser printing is the transfer of data from a computer to the memory of the image processor of a printer.

Writing Data
Now, once the data is transferred to the printer's memory, it is written to the printer's drum with the help of a laser. The drum will keep rotating and the moment it rotates past the laser, it sweeps off the printer's surface neutralizing some spots to about -100v. These spots are the areas where the toner remains stuck to the drum and further gets transferred to the paper.

Inserting the Paper and Pickup Process of the Toner

Once the writing process is over, you need to add papers to the printer. Keep the papers into the printer's paper tray. The feed rollers inside the printer pull the paper inside and the registration rollers hold it till its release. As the drum keeps on rotating, the toner settles down in an area which is at a charge of about -100v and remains attached to the drum till the paper comes in.

Transfer of the Toner to the Paper
Now, the complete toned image is created on the drum. The moment you apply the paper to the printer, the toner transfer process starts. The transfer corona applies a charge of about +600v to the paper and when the paper passes through the drum, the toner which is at a charge of about -100v gets transferred to the paper. Further, the paper passes through a static charge eliminator that decreases the positive charge in the paper, with the help of its negative charge.

Fusing
The process of fusion takes place in order to secure the printout by melting the minute plastic fragments present on the toner's surface, so as to fix them to the paper fibers.

Hopefully, I have satisfactorily answered your doubts of what is a laser printer and also about the working of a laser printer. Laser printers are handy when it comes to fast, bulk and quality printing. But high prices and some health risks such as respiratory disorders due to the release of some harmful sub-micrometer particles are some of the disadvantages associated with laser printing. However, laser printers still remain the first choice for most of the organizations when it comes to printing.