Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It is used to produce high-quality text and images by passing a laser beam repeatedly back and forth over a negatively charged cylinder called a “drum”. The drum then collects the electrically charged powdered ink and projects them onto a paper.
About Laser Printer
Laser printers were first invented in the 1970s at XEROX PARC. It was initially introduced for office use, then subsequently for home use. Initially, the printers used to be extremely expensive, but the demand for such machines increased as time went by. After that, the prices of such devices dropped to become affordable for all kinds of households.
Advantages of Laser printers:
Longer working life
These machines are built to persevere through heavy-duty use with a higher warranty period. Typically these machines are provided with a guarantee of 20 to 50 lakh pages and are usually found in private offices and firms where the requirement to print is more.
Much Higher printing speed
These can print pages with lightning speed. Usually, it’s somewhere between 200 to 300 pages per minute.
Easy to repair and reliable
Laser printers are generally found in private offices and public firms where there are a lot of pages to print. After-sale service and repair facilities of such machines are top-notch as they cater to essential and sometimes even confidential workloads.
Duplex scanning and printing
So for printing both sides, you don’t need to take out the page manually and flip it. These devices come with printing and scanning devices on both the fronts and do scanning and printing simultaneously on both sides.
Advanced security options
The machines nowadays come with top-notch Hitech security options, which keep a record of all the prints that take place during the day.
Noise
Laser printers are not noisy.
Disadvantages of Laser printers:
Capital cost
You have to incur a high investment cost as the machines come with top-notch specifications, which shoots the initial price of the machine through the roof.
Printing cost
Per page print cost is higher when compared with the inkjet printers
Higher repair cost
As the machine comes with high system specifications repairing them can get quite an arduous task which justifies the steep repairing cost.
The toner is harmful to humans.
The powder toner contains chemicals that are harmful to humans and considered toxic. If accidentally inhaled can lead to fatal respiratory diseases.
Its effect on the environment
It’s of utmost importance that laser printers be handled with care and by professionals as it constitutes materials toxic to humans and the environment.
Power consumption
Laser printers consume a high amount of power even when they are idle. This is because the fuser element inside the printer can get hot, releasing heat. Eventually, your room may get hot. That is why laser printers are not preferred in hot and humid climate conditions.
Few points to remember about laser printers:
- A laser printer is a Non-Impact printer.
- Instead of ink, toner (powder) is used.
- It is also known as a Page printer because it prints the whole page at once.
- This type of printer uses a focused beam of light to transfer text and images onto paper.
- Laser printer makes use of laser technology.
Conclusion
Printers form an integral part of our daily lives. Not a day can go by without a printer in offices, courts, banks, public firms etc. Apart from its various utilities, it has some reasons we need to be careful when using it. Especially laser printers need to be handled with utmost caution and by a professional.
