Chapter 10: Installing and Configuring Printers Flashcards
Printer
Electromechanical output device that is used to put information from the computer onto paper.
Four classifications of printers
Impact
Inkjet (Bubble-jet)
Laser
Thermal
The most basic type (classification) of printers
Impact
How do impact printers operate to get ink onto paper?
These printers use a form of impact on an inked ribbon to make an imprint on paper – like a typewriter.
Paper Feed machanism for an impact printer
Tractor Feed
What type of printer, and specifically what part of that printer, requires this paper?
The tractor feed of an impact printer
Two major types of impact printers
Daisy Wheel
Dot Matrix
Daisy-Wheel Printers
One of the oldest printing technologies in use.
Contains a wheel that looks like a daisy, with raised letters & symbols on each petal.
A hammer strikes the back of the desired petal against a print ribbon, over paper, producing the letter.
Printhead
The component of a daisy-wheel printer that houses the daisy wheel.
Solenoid
The component of a daisy-wheel printer that acts as a hammer, striking the back of the “petal” on the daisy wheel that corresponds with the desired letter to be printed.
The speed of a daisy-wheel printer is measured in _____
Characters per second (CPS)
What are the two largest disadvantages of the daisy-wheel printer?
Poor speed
Loud
What are the advantages of a daisy wheel printer?
It’s an impact printer, which means you can use it to print multipart forms (duplex forms, etc – impact paper).
It’s relatively inexpensive, compared to laser printers
Print quality is comparable to a typewriter.
Name the parts of a daisy-wheel printer
What is the difference between a daisy-wheel printer and a dot-matrix
A dot-matrix printer doesn’t have a daisy-wheel with characters on it. Instead, it has a print head with a row of pints that are triggered in patters to hit the paper, forming letters.
What is the disadvantage of a dot matrix printer?
The print quality is worse than the daisy-wheel.
Refered to as ‘draft quality’
Early models only used 9 pins, creating a fuzzy look for letters printed.
NLQ
Near Letter Quality
A level of quality produced by a dot-matrix printer that almost lives up to the quality produced by a typewriter.
Dot-matrix printers eventually got to this point.
What distinguishes impact printers from inkjet printers?
Inkjet printers spray ink on the page in the form of images, whereas impact printers impress a specific image by striking the page.
The primary parts of an inkjet / bubble-jet printer
Print head / ink cartridge
Head carriage, belt, and stepper motor
Paper-feed machanism
Control, interface, and power circuitry
Inkjet / Bubblejet’s Print Head
Contains many small nozzles (100-200) that spray the ink in small droplets onto the page.
Sometimes this is part of the ink cartridge itself.
CMYK
Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black
Main ink jets on an inkjet / bubble-jet printer
Inkjet / Bubble-jet Maintenence Station
Where the print head sits while not printing.
Includes a small sunction pump and ink-absorbing pad.
Station pulls ink through the print head’s nozzles using vacuum
Print Head Carriage
Component of the bubble-jet / ink jet printer that moves back and forth during printing.
Contains a physical portion of the print head
Sometimes contains an ink reservoir
Name this part of an inkjet / bubble-jet printer
Print Head Carriage
Stepper Motor
A component of inkjet / bubble-jet printers that moves the print head carraige.
Named this way because it moves the same, pricese distance each time it’s activated, allowing the carriage to get to specific parts of the page.
A stepper motor is also known as
carriage motor
carriage stepper motor
Paper-feed mechanism
Picks up paper from the paper drawer and feeds it to the printer
Name this device:
Pickup Rollers
Pickup Rollers
Part of the paper-feed mechanism.
Rubber rollers with a slightly flat spot. Rub against the paper and pick up a sheet at a time.
Identify this part of a bubble-jet printer
Paper Tray
Identify this part of a bubble-jet printer
Seperator Pad
Identify this part of a bubble-jet printer:
Paper-feed sensor
tell the printer when it is out of paper as well as when a paper jam has occurred during the paper-feed process.
Printer Control Circuits
Part of an inkjet / bubble-jet printer
electronic circuitry for printer control, printer interfaces, and printer power
usually on a small circuit board that contains all the circuitry to run the stepper motors the way the printer needs them to work
also responsible for monitoring the health of the printer and reporting that information back to the PC.
Describe the bubble-jet / inkjet printing process
- You click print
- Software you’re using sends data to be printed to the print drive.
- Driver converts data received from software into a language the printer understands.
- Driver sends converted information to the printer
- Printer stores received data in its print buffer memory
- Printer completes a cleaning cycle to purge print heads of dry ink
- Paper feed motor brings up a sheet of paper
- Print-head stepper-motor moves the print head carriage across the page while the print head nozzels spray ink in the appropriate locations
- Paper feed motor advances the page a small amount. Print head carriage repeats step 8.
- When the page is finished, the paper is ejected from the printer
- Print head is parked
Print Buffer Memory
a small amount of memory (typically 512KB to 16MB) used to store print jobs as they are received from the printing computer. This buffer allows several jobs to be printed at once and helps printing to be completed quickly.
Cleaning Cycle
a set of steps the bubble-jet printer goes through to purge the print heads of any dried ink. It uses a special suction cup and sucking action to pull ink through the print head, dislodging any dried ink or clearing stuck passageways.
Page Printers
A term that refers to printers that receive instructions one page at a time, instead of one line at a time.
Examples include laser printers and inkjet / bubble-jet printers.
Laser printers follow the _____ print process to print.
electrophotographic (EP)
Nine components of the laser printer
the toner cartridge
laser scanner
high-voltage power supply
DC power supply
paper transport assembly (includ- ing paper-pickup rollers and paper-registration rollers)
transfer corona
fusing assembly
printer controller circuitry
ozone filter
Toner
lack carbon substance mixed with polyester resins to make it flow better and iron oxide particles to make it sensitive to electrical charges.
Name this device:
Toner cartridge for a laser printer
Name the components of this laser cartridge.
The print drum on an EP printer can hold a static chage, but only _____
When it is not exposed to light.
It cannot hold a charge when it is exposed to light—a curious phenomenon and one that EP printers exploit for the purpose of making images.
How does an EP printer use light and the print drum to put ink on paper?
It is dark inside an EP printer, except when the laser scanning assembly shines on particular areas of the photosensitive drum. When it does that, the drum discharges, but only in the area that has been exposed. As the drum rotates, the laser scanning assembly scans the laser across the photosensitive drum, writing the image onto it.
HVPS
The EP process requires high-voltage electricity. The high-voltage power supply (HVPS) provides the high voltages used during the EP process.
Converts AC current from a wall outlet into higher voltages that the printer can use.
DCPS
DC Power Supply
The high voltages used in the EP process can’t power the other components in the printer (the logic circuitry and motors). These components require low voltages
The DC power supply (DCPS) converts house current into three voltages: +5VDC and –5VDC for the logic circuitry and +24VDC for the paper-transport motors. This component also runs the fan that cools the internal components of the printer.
Paper-Transport Assembly
Component of a laser printer
The paper-transport assembly is responsible for moving the paper through the printer. It consists of a motor and several rubberized rollers
Types of rolers found in the paper-transport assembly
Feed Roller / Paper-pickup roller
Registration Roller
Feed Roller / Paper Pickup Roller
Type of roller found in the paper-transport assembly of a laser printer
This D-shaped roller, when activated, rotates against the paper and pushes one sheet into the printer. This roller works in conjunction with a special rubber separator pad to prevent more than one sheet from being fed into the printer at a time.
Registration Roller
Type of roller found in the paper-transport assembly of a laser printer
There are actually two registration rollers, which work together. These rollers synchronize the paper movement with the image-formation process in the EP cartridge. The rollers don’t feed the paper past the EP cartridge until the cartridge is ready for it.
What motor powers the registration and feed rollers?
Electronic Stepper Motor
Name the rollers in this laser printer:
Transfer Corona Assembly
Part of a laser printer
When the laser writes the images on the photosensitive drum, the toner then sticks to the exposed areas
The transfer corona assembly is given a high-voltage charge, which is transferred to the paper, which in turn pulls the toner from the photosensitive drum.
Fusing Assembly
uses two rollers that apply pressure and heat to fuse the plastic toner particles to the paper. You may have noticed that pages from either a laser printer or a copier (which uses a similar device) come out warm. This is because of the fuser.
Without this device, the ink wouldn’t stick to the paper, and just fall off like sand.
Printer Controller Assembly
This large circuit board converts signals from the computer into signals for the various assem- blies in the laser printer, using a process known as rasterizing. This circuit board is usually mounted under the printer. The board has connectors for each type of interface and cables to each assembly.
Ozone Filter
Ozone is a chemically reactive gas that is created by the high-voltage coronas (charging and transfer) inside the printer. Because ozone is chemically reactive and can severely reduce the life of laser printer components, many older laser printers contain a filter to remove ozone gas from inside the printer as it is produced
Duplexing Assembly
Any laser printer worth its money today can print on both sides of the paper. This is accomplished through the use of a duplexing assembly.
Printer’s Interface
A printer’s interface is the collection of hardware and software that allows the printer to communicate with a computer.
Examples of wired interface types on printers
Serial
Parallel
USB
Ethernet
Examples of wireless interface types on printers
802.11
Bluetooth
Infrared
What’s the range of a bluetooth device?
33 feet (10 meter)
PDL
Page Description Language
Describes the whole page being printed by sending commands that describe the text as well as the margins and other settings. The controller in the printer interprets these commands and turns them into laser pulses (or pin strikes)
PDC Communication Languages
PostScript, Printer Command Language (PCL), and Graphics Device Interface (GDI)
Driver Software
The driver software controls how the printer processes the print job. When you install a printer driver for the printer you are using, it allows the computer to print to that printer correctly
