Printer

 

What is Printer?

A printer is a hardware output device that is used to generate hard copy and print any document. A document can be of any type such as a text file, image, or the combination of both. It accepts input command by users on a computer or on other devices to print the documents. For example, if you have to submit a project report at your college, you need to create a soft copy of your report and print it with the help of the printer.

Printers are one of the common computer peripheral devices that can be classified into two categories that are 2D and 3D printers. The 2D printers are used to print text and graphics on a paper, and 3D printers are used to create three dimensional physical objects.

Types of printer.

Although there are different types of printers, nowadays, two types of printers are commonly used, which are inkjet and laser printers. A list of all the various types of printers is given below:

• Inkjet Printers
• Laser Printers
• 3D Printers
• LED Printers
• Solid Ink Printers
• Dot Matrix Printers
• Multifunction or All-in-One Printers
• Thermal printer
• Plotter

Inkjet Printers

It is widely used by home and business computer users that prints characters by spraying the ink using magnetic plates on the paper. It stores the ink in cartridges, and uses separate cartridge to print several types of color documents. These colors are a combination of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black color. These types of printers have the ability to create high-quality pictures with the help of vivid colors. Furthermore, the inkjet printers are more affordable and easier to use as compared to other printers.

Advantages of Inkjet Printers:

• The Inkjet printers have the ability to produce high-quality output.
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• These printers are reasonably fast and easy to use.
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• Additionally, these types of printers do not take warm up time.

 

Disadvantages of Inkjet Printer:

• It may take more time to print.
• Its running cost is high.
• It does not allow the highlighter marker.
• Sometimes, it can produce a wrong warning of an empty cartridge.

Laser printers

The laser printer is one of the common personal computer printers. It was introduced in 1971, and after that it was developed at Xerox PARC by Gary Starkweather. It uses the laser or non-impact photocopier technology to print the text and images on the paper. Whenever it gets input to print any document, a laser beam draws the document on the selenium-coated drum with the help of electric charges.

• When the drum is charged, it is rolled in toner (dry ink powder). The ink follows the image, which has charged on the drum. The ink is combined with the paper, including heat and pressure, then transferred on a chunk (piece) of paper.

When the document is printed, the excess toner is collected, and an electric charge is removed from the drum. Most of the laser printers are capable of printing only in monochrome. The monochrome laser printer is around ten times cheaper than a color laser printer.

Advantages of a Laser printer:

• These types of printers have a higher paper capacity.
• It is less expensive than the inkjet printer.
• It has the ability to print documents speedily.
• Furthermore, it is able to increase productivity.

Disadvantages of a Laser printer:

• Laser printers may need warm up time.
• Laser printers are bulky as they required the laser technology and imaging drum.
• It requires high voltage leads to small carbon emissions.

3D Printers

One of the best enhancements in the history of printing technology is the 3d printer, which was developed by Chuck Hull in 1984. It produces 3D objects and items by using quality resin. It uses materials like plastics, polymers, metal alloys, or even food ingredients.

 

Application of 3D printers

There are many applications where 3D printers are used, such as archaeology, aerospace engineering, information systems, dentistry, and biotechnology. For example, it might be used to reconstruct ancient artifacts of archaeology physically, which have been destroyed with time.

Advantages of 3D printer:

• The main advantage of a 3D printer is that it allows users to print objects in 3D .
• It has the ability of full customization.
• It is easy to access and cost-effective.
• It prints the documents with better quality.
• It provides users unlimited shapes and geometry.

Disadvantages of 3D printer:

• Its initial and resin costs are high.
• 3D printing is still developing technology.
• It consumes high energy around 50 to 100 more than injection molding.
• It includes limited materials
• The 3D printers are slow as they are limitless for mass customization.

Dot Matrix Printers

The dot matrix printers are also known as a pin printer that was released by IBM in 1957. Although, in 1970, Centronics created the first dot-matrix impact printer. It strikes an ink ribbon using print heads that place thousands of little dots to form images and text. Nowadays, as compared to laser and inkjet printers, it is less used, as its printing speed slow and generates lower quality images. However, dot matrix printers are still in use in some sectors like package delivery companies and auto part stores.

Advantages of Dot matrix printer:

• A dot matrix printer is less expensive as compared to most of the printers, and it is easily available in the market.
• It has the ability to print carbon copies of a particular print out, unlike non-impact printers.
• Its printing cost is lowest than the other printers.
• Furthermore, its maintenance cost is less expensive than the other printers.

 

 

Disadvantages of Dot matrix printer:

• The speed of the dot matrix printer is slow as compared to non-impact printers, and its output is also not of high resolution.
• It creates high noise when the pins hit the ribbon to the paper.
• It may be a time-consuming printer as it requires a single paper to wound up and aligned manually.

 

Multifunction Printers

Multifunction printer is a hardware device that can perform various tasks such as printing, scanning, faxing, and copying. It is also called the All-in-One printer. It is suitable for budget-minded businesses that want to reduce costs, consolidate assets, and improve workflow. Although it is necessary to connect the printer to a computer with the help of a wire or wireless connection, sometimes it can be controlled from their control panel like standalone copiers. Furthermore, no need for more than one unit as it can easily complete multiple tasks within an office or home simultaneously.

Advantages of Multifunction Printers:

• The multifunction printers can save initial cost, as instead of purchasing many printers and fax machines, you can purchase only one large MFG for multipurpose.
• These types of printers are beneficial for home and office as they save a lot of floor space. It may be difficult to find space for the fax machine, printer, and scanner, but a multifunction printer takes limited space and can perform multi-task such as a printing, faxing, and scanning.
• One of the best advantages of a multifunction printer, the operation functionality is faster as compared to laser printers or other printers. Also, some of the multifunction printers can send print documents, faxes, scan images, and copy all at the same time.
• Furthermore, these printers need only one cable to power the whole setup, which reduces the congestion and electricity required to run the device. Thus, the multifunction printer consumes less power as compared to other printers.

Disadvantages of Multifunction Printers:

• The operating cost of a multifunction printer is high. Its maintenance cost is also expensive as it uses ink speedily as compared to other printers. All functions, such as faxing, copying, and printer, use ink faster.
• These printers perform a task on the basis of first in first out rule. So all tasks stack up in a queue that can cause slow the machine.Thus, some people may have to wait to use the machine.
• When the multifunction printer is out of service or broken down, the all work scanning, printing, copying, faxing will be completely stopped. It can be an issue for an organization, if they have more requirements for faxing, copying, and printing the documents.

Thermal printer

The thermal printer is invented by Jack Kilby that is also known as an electrothermal printer, thermal transfer printer, or thermal wax-transfer printer. It utilizes heated pins in order to produce the image on paper. These types of printers are widely used in banking, airline, grocery, entertainment, retail, healthcare industries, fax, and calculator machines.These printers are low-cost and print fast, and do not use ink like other printers. They primarily depend on the thermal paper to produce the images.

This technology is useful for an organization as it is reliable as well as cost-effective. Employees can work continuously without getting interrupted because they do not need to change the cartridges or ribbons in this printer.

Advantages of Thermal printer:

• One of the main advantages of a thermal printer, it does not need any ribbons or cartridges.Thus, the companies can save the time by using it.
• These types of printers are easy to use as they have fewer buttons, including the use of software.
• These are beneficial for offices as they provide noise-free environments.
• These printers are cheaper and available in several models and sizes.
• These printers are faster and more efficient in printing monochromic ones than the other printers.

Disadvantages of Thermal printer:

• Generally, a thermal printer does not produce colors print out well, like standard printers.
• At the time of printing, the high heat can be harmful to the printhead. Consequently, if the printhead breaks down, you have to pay for a repair or buy a new one.

Plotter

A plotter is a hardware device or a printer, which was first invented by Remington-Rand in 1953. It is developed to print vector graphics and uses a pencil, pen, marker, or other writing tools for drawing continuous lines instead of using ink or tonner. It is widely used to print a hard copy of schematics and other similar applications.

There are several types of plotter given in the below list:

1. Drum plotter: It is also known as roller plotter. It turns the paperback and forth on a drum while pens move left and right. With the help of combining these two directions, the line can be drawn in any direction.
2. Flatbed plotter: In flatbed plotter, a paper is placed on a large horizontal surface.A traveling bar moves across the surface and draws the lines.
3. Electrostatic plotter: It draws on paper that is charged negatively with positively charged ink or tonner.
4. Inkjet Plotter: It is a type of Pinch Roller Plotter, which produces an image with the help of showering little drops of ink on the paper.
5. Cutting Plotter: It is a new generation device that allows users to cut different shapes. It is mainly used for advertising, sign-making, bill board, and vehicle graphics.

Advantages of Plotter:

• A Plotter is capable of working on the large sheet around 2 feet or more with better quality.
• It can print on sheet, steel, plastic, aluminum, plywood, and any flat sheet material, including paper.
• It has the ability to save all templates and patterns on the disk. Thus, it can overcome the problem to load the same pattern again and again.
• Furthermore, it can draw the same pattern thousand times without any degradation.

Disadvantages of Plotter:

• The size of a plotter is very large than the traditional printers.
• Plotters are more expensive as compared to a traditional printer.