Laser Toner Printer- Understanding Its Different Parts and Their Working

Printers these days have become a basic necessity of almost every household. From school going to college students, a printer is an essential equipment to finish their homework and project work. 

However, have you ever wondered how a printer actually works? How does this equipment transform a plain sheet of paper into a colourful picture or precisely printed words? A printer can print everything from a single line of alphabet to complex multi-hued designs. These instruments are not only very fast, but are highly precise as well.

If only you could peek into the instrument while it’s working, you could see how it actually works to create these magical prints. However, that could be quite dangerous. Instead, you must know about the different parts of the machine and how these parts work together and create these prints within seconds.

Different Parts of the Laser Toner Printer: The basic parts of a printer are:

• The data input controller
• The drum
• The laser device
• The toner
• The fuser

All these parts come together in harmony to transport the images from the screen to the paper. 

The Working: Now let’s try and understand how these parts work. When you give a command on your computer, the data to be printed is transferred to data input controller of the printer. This controller then deciphers the given data into the language that the printer can understand.

The controller also prepares the drum. The drum is an aluminium cylinder that is coated with photosynthetic material. First, the drum gets set for printing, so that the data can be transferred on the paper.

The drum then cleans itself of the previous print, so that no traces are left. A wiper blade does this. The wiper blade scrapes off any residual toner that might have been left behind from the previous print. 

In some of the newer versions of toner printers, this cleaning job is done by neutralizing the residual electrostatic charges. Once the drum is completely cleaned up, it is then negatively charged at -600v.

Now it’s the job of the laser device, which draws the entire image to be printed on the drum. For this, the laser will hit the drum at precise places and change the charge at those points to -100v. The toner will be stuck to these precise spots.

The laser device comes in different range from 300 dpi up to 1200 dpi (dots per inch). Higher the dpi value better will be the print quality. Toners also come in a huge variety. Some of the bestselling toner cartridges these days are Buy HP CE400X and HP 950 XL. 

The toner cartridge is basically made of iron oxide. The iron oxide of the toner is stuck on the drum because of the electrostatic charges. While this is happening, the paper is pulled into the printer. The paper being positively charged attracts the toner particles that are stuck on the paper.

Next, the paper passes through the fuser. The fuser comprises of two rollers. While the paper is passing through these rollers, they melt the toner at 355°F and fix it onto the paper. The hot freshly printed-paper comes out of the printer.

The most amazing thing to note is that the laser toner printer carries out all these complicated steps within seconds. As soon as the print instruction is given, the paper is fed into the printer and comes out with the exact print.