LED Printer

Short for light emitting diode printer, LED printers were developed by Casio and are printers capable of printing at the same or close to the same quality as most laser printers. LED printers work much like laser printers but utilize a LED panel that recreates the image on a negatively charged drum. The areas where the light hits the drum become less charged, which attracts toner. The printer then transfers the toner from the drum to the paper and applies intense heat to fuse the toner to the paper. <

Thermal printer

A thermal impact printer or electrothermal printer is a type of printer that uses heated pins to "burn" images onto heat-sensitive paper. These types of printers are commonly used in calculators and fax machines; and although they are inexpensive and print relatively fast, they produce low resolution print jobs. A thermal printer, thermal transfer printer, or thermal wax-transfer printer is a high quality printer that commonly utilizes a thermal wax ribbon that melts a colored wax onto the paper creating near photo-realistic images. <

Laser printer

First developed at Xerox PARC by Gary Starkweather and released in 1971, a laser printer is a type of printer that utilizes laser technology to print images on the paper. Laser printers are often used in corporate, school, and other environments that require print jobs to be completed quickly and in large quantities. To the right is an example of what a laser printer may look like. This picture is of the Lexmark C782n laser printer. Finally, below is a chart of the steps a laser printer takes to print. STEP WHAT IT DOES Cleaning Removes prior image information and toner from the drum. Conditioning Applies a uniform negative charge to the drum. Writing Light source such as lasers, LED, or LCS (Liquid Crystal Shutter) write to areas on the drum discharging the negative potential where it hits. Developing The toner is ionized with a negative charge and is attracted to the areas previously written (discharged) on the drum. Transfer The toner of the drum is transferred to the paper by either a positively ionized field (created by a transfer corona wire) or by a transfer roller in newer printers. The toner is not yet permanently set on the paper and requires the last stage. Fusing Heat and pressure are applied to the paper and toner. The toner melts and then is pressed to the paper like doing an iron-on transfer to a T-shirt. Additional information and help with computer printers can be found on our printer help page. <

Inkjet printer

A popular type of printer for home computer users that prints by spraying streams of quick-drying ink on paper. The ink is stored in disposable ink cartridges. often a separate cartridge is used for each of the major colors. These colors are usually Black, Red/Magenta, Green/Cyan, and Yellow (CYMK). Although inkjet printers themselves are often relatively inexpensive, the ink cartridges used in the printers can quickly increase the overall cost of the printer. Additional information and help with computer printers can be found on our printer help page. <

DOT matrix

The term DOT matrix refers to the process of placing dots to form an image; the quality of the image being determined by the dots per inch. Dot matrix printers were first introduced by Centronics in 1970 and is a type of printer that uses print heads to shoot ink or strike an ink ribbon to place hundreds to thousands of little dots to form text and/or images. Today, dot matrix printers are not commonly used or found because of the low quality print outs when compared to ink jet printers or other later printer technologies. Additional information and help with computer printers can be found on our printer help page. <

Printer

An extemal hardware device responsible for taking computer data and generating a hard copy of that data. Printers are one of the most used peripherals on computers and are commonly used to print text, images,and/or photos. The image to the right is a visual example of the Lexmark Z605 Inkjetprinter and is an example of what a printer may look like. Types of printers: Dot Matrix printer Inkjet printer Laser printer Thermal printer LED printer Information about how to print a file or document can be found on document CH000902 Additional information and help with computer printers can be found on our printer help page . Printer buying tips can be found on our printer s buying tips page. <

Monitor

1. Also called a video display terminal (VDT) a monitor is a video display screen and the hard shell that holds it. In its most common usage, monitor refers only to devices that contain no electronic equipment other than what is essentially needed to display and adjust the characteristics of an image. Additional information and help with computer monitors can be found here. 2. To view or watch over someone or something. <