Just by its name, people can already recognise that inkjet printers produce images by spraying tiny jets of ink on the paper. On the other hand, laser printers are a lot more complicated. How can a highly focused beam of light (laser) draw pictures, write words, and even create full-page masterpieces in just a matter of seconds? Well, you can learn about how this technological marvel works by reading on.
Before anything else, let us take a look at the brief history of this marvellous equipment. Created by a brilliant researcher named Gary Starkweather around the year 1976, the laser printer is a mixture of machinery, electricity, chemistry, friction, heat, and magnetism. This outstanding device has been continuously developed over the years into the powerful gadget that almost everyone is using now and in the years to come.
Now, to begin with, the electricity from your outlet is converted into static energy by the printer’s insulated wirings. After which, a wire called charge corona transfers a total positive charge to the drum or the photoreceptor. This part of the equipment then rotates and creates an invisible pattern of the image that is to be printed. On this note, the picture will have the positive electrostatic charge, while the blank background will have a negative charge.
Next, the paper then continues on through the next stage to pass through the fuser, a pair of heated rollers. This process happens very fast to avoid burning the paper. As it passes through, loose toner powder melts. Finally, following the principle of “opposite charges attract”, the toners are charged negatively in order for it to fuse with the positively charged image layout on the paper while avoiding the background with negative charges.