Printers & Multifunction Devices
- Laser Printers
- A laser hits the photosensitive drum (the cornerstone of laser printers) to create an image
- Memorize the laser printing process
- Laser printer maintenance means replacing the toner cartridge and applying maintenance kits.
- All laser printers have maintenance kits. These can help the printers last for years!
- Inkjet Printers (aka Bubblejet Printers)
- CYMK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, & Black)
- Inkjet printers use heat or mechanical process to push ink through the print heads to media.
- A multifunction device (MFD) includes a printer, scanner, copier and fax machine, all-in-one.
- Inkjet maintenance means running cleaning routines for the nozzles, plus some form of calibration.
- Impact Printers (aka DotMatrix)
- predate PC’s; used in the old mainframe days!
- Use ink ribbons & tractor feed paper, or ‘impact paper’.
- Still used in many industrial sectors
- Impact printers strike an ink ribbon to write to paper.
- Impact printers are very useful for printing on multipart forms
- Maintenance for an impact printer includes replacing the ribbon and keeping it clean.
- Thermal Printers
- Thermal printers heat special paper to create a printout
- Thermal printers can print to multipart (thermal) forms
- Maintenance with thermal printers include frequent paper changes and keeping the heating element clean.
- Thermal printers are used by many Point of Sale devices. (i.e.—receipt paper)
- Installing a Local Printer
- Installing a local printer means connecting to workstation via USB or (rarely) serial
- Device drivers enable the OS to work with the printer
- The print spoiler enables multiple print jobs to queue.
- Sharing Printers
- Sharing a local printer over a network requires sharing enable and a share name.
- Security options enable local control over the print spooler
- To connect to a shared printer, add a printer but select the shared printer rather than a local printer.
- Installing Wireless & Cloud Printers
- A wired network printer has an Ethernet NIC and plug-in directly to the network.
- A wireless network printer requires configuration to get on an 802.11 network.
- Wireless print utilities can help troubleshoot any connectivity problems.
- Cloud printing enables mobile devices to print to a printer associated with an online account, such as a Google account.
- Troubleshooting Printers
- Inability to install a printer can reflect an unshared or missing printer.
- Lack of connectivity can refer to physical cables, print server disabled, devices drivers lacking, wireless configuration problems and more.
- Physical print problems can manifest as no display, paper jams, insufficient memory, corrupted drivers, and more.
- 3-D Printing
- 3-D printers melt some material, such as forms of plastic, in a pattern to create a 3-D shape.
- Use specialized software to create a 3-D image.
- The printing process requires pre-heating the various print elements, such as the filament, extruder, and bed.
