1
00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:02,880
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

2
00:00:03,240 --> 00:00:08,760
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

3
00:00:08,920 --> 00:00:12,240
Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com, brought to

4
00:00:12,280 --> 00:00:19,400
Speaker 1: you by HP Live wirelessly, print wirelessly. Hey they're kids,

5
00:00:19,440 --> 00:00:22,280
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Polette. I'm

6
00:00:22,280 --> 00:00:24,680
Speaker 1: an editor here at How Stuff Works, and today I

7
00:00:24,760 --> 00:00:27,520
Speaker 1: have sitting across the table from me is Jonathan Strickland,

8
00:00:27,560 --> 00:00:31,600
Speaker 1: one of our writers. How d well you know, I

9
00:00:31,680 --> 00:00:35,279
Speaker 1: wanted to know if anybody out there is interested in

10
00:00:35,320 --> 00:00:39,360
Speaker 1: an old daisy wheel printer. I have one. Well, yeah,

11
00:00:39,520 --> 00:00:43,959
Speaker 1: that'll uh, I'll get swept up immediately on eBay. Yeah. Well,

12
00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:46,080
Speaker 1: we were going to talk about printers today, down about

13
00:00:46,080 --> 00:00:48,599
Speaker 1: different kinds of printers and how they work. And uh,

14
00:00:48,680 --> 00:00:52,280
Speaker 1: I actually do, indeed have a daisy wheel printer at home,

15
00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:56,000
Speaker 1: which is basically a typewriter. For those of you who

16
00:00:56,040 --> 00:00:57,920
Speaker 1: are too young to remember what a typewriter is, it

17
00:00:58,040 --> 00:01:01,240
Speaker 1: basically is a keyboard at type to a printer directly

18
00:01:01,880 --> 00:01:05,520
Speaker 1: talk about your wireless printers. Uh, you know that that's

19
00:01:05,520 --> 00:01:08,880
Speaker 1: about as wireless as it gets. But early printers used

20
00:01:08,920 --> 00:01:12,400
Speaker 1: a wheel with the letters printed in metal. Uh, sort

21
00:01:12,440 --> 00:01:16,679
Speaker 1: of reverse type and it would you know, as you typed. Uh.

22
00:01:16,840 --> 00:01:18,680
Speaker 1: This the one I've got actually has a keyboard that

23
00:01:18,720 --> 00:01:21,280
Speaker 1: hooks up to it. If you didn't have a computer yet, uh,

24
00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:23,680
Speaker 1: and you could actually print it out, it would it would.

25
00:01:23,800 --> 00:01:27,759
Speaker 1: The daisy wheel spins and it literally does look sort

26
00:01:27,800 --> 00:01:30,280
Speaker 1: of like a metallic daisy because it each key has

27
00:01:30,319 --> 00:01:32,399
Speaker 1: its own pin and it goes and hits the ribbon

28
00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:35,319
Speaker 1: and you know, types out a letter for you the

29
00:01:35,360 --> 00:01:38,640
Speaker 1: paper that transfers the ink to the paper and woila,

30
00:01:38,800 --> 00:01:41,520
Speaker 1: you have the printed word. There you go and uh,

31
00:01:41,600 --> 00:01:44,039
Speaker 1: it's it's about as simple, I guess a printer as

32
00:01:44,080 --> 00:01:45,800
Speaker 1: you can get in one of the earliest types. But

33
00:01:45,840 --> 00:01:48,120
Speaker 1: you don't see them very often anything. No, Gully, I

34
00:01:48,160 --> 00:01:52,440
Speaker 1: can't imagine why my my father has a dot matrix

35
00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:54,840
Speaker 1: printer still at his house, which serves as a great

36
00:01:54,840 --> 00:01:59,360
Speaker 1: paper weight. Um, because they're quite heavy. Dot matrix are similar.

37
00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:01,960
Speaker 1: That's a Uh. These are the kind of printers we're

38
00:02:01,960 --> 00:02:05,120
Speaker 1: talking about right now, are impact printers, meaning that they

39
00:02:05,160 --> 00:02:09,799
Speaker 1: there's a physical impact that uh that where something contacts

40
00:02:09,880 --> 00:02:11,880
Speaker 1: the sheet of paper and that's what makes the the

41
00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:15,760
Speaker 1: printed letter. With dot matrix, it's a series of pins

42
00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:19,440
Speaker 1: that that when they strike the ribbon, that's what forms

43
00:02:19,480 --> 00:02:22,240
Speaker 1: the letters. So they don't have each letter laid out

44
00:02:22,280 --> 00:02:24,800
Speaker 1: on a on a metal sheet or anything like that.

45
00:02:24,880 --> 00:02:27,440
Speaker 1: It's just little tiny pins that all hit at the

46
00:02:27,480 --> 00:02:31,120
Speaker 1: same time. So um, yeah, you don't see many of

47
00:02:31,120 --> 00:02:33,680
Speaker 1: those anymore either. These are not also these if you

48
00:02:33,760 --> 00:02:35,679
Speaker 1: have ever used one of these, they have a very

49
00:02:35,680 --> 00:02:39,720
Speaker 1: distinctive sound. Um and they also the paper tended to

50
00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:42,040
Speaker 1: be pretty annoying too, as I recall, most of them

51
00:02:42,080 --> 00:02:44,920
Speaker 1: were in those long, long, long sheets where you'd have

52
00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:47,280
Speaker 1: to tear it off at the end with the green

53
00:02:47,280 --> 00:02:51,720
Speaker 1: and yellow stripes with the right perforated the perforated edges

54
00:02:51,720 --> 00:02:55,120
Speaker 1: where it with the holes that would go into Yeah, exactly,

55
00:02:55,320 --> 00:02:58,080
Speaker 1: that was Those were nightmare to work with, trust me.

56
00:02:58,160 --> 00:03:01,000
Speaker 1: Although you could make some nice origami with the stuff

57
00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:05,680
Speaker 1: that you had to tear off those papers. But but

58
00:03:05,680 --> 00:03:07,919
Speaker 1: but that's that's sort of in the past. Or there's

59
00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:11,680
Speaker 1: still lots of industries that use impact printers because they're

60
00:03:11,720 --> 00:03:14,520
Speaker 1: relatively inexpensive and and uh, you know, they last for

61
00:03:14,520 --> 00:03:16,600
Speaker 1: a pretty long time. You do have to do maintenance

62
00:03:16,639 --> 00:03:21,200
Speaker 1: on them. But most people have moved to non impact printers,

63
00:03:21,280 --> 00:03:23,280
Speaker 1: and the two main versions of that. The two one

64
00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:25,360
Speaker 1: to that you find most in the in the UH

65
00:03:26,040 --> 00:03:28,840
Speaker 1: consumer market and even in the office environment are ink

66
00:03:28,919 --> 00:03:32,720
Speaker 1: jet printers and laser printers. Right, yeah, yeah, pretty much.

67
00:03:32,760 --> 00:03:35,040
Speaker 1: I mean there there are other types to uh. In fact,

68
00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:36,560
Speaker 1: I'll go ahead and run through them so we can

69
00:03:36,560 --> 00:03:40,000
Speaker 1: get them out of the way, so other forms of

70
00:03:40,120 --> 00:03:42,040
Speaker 1: non impact printers. I kind of wish we had like

71
00:03:42,320 --> 00:03:45,480
Speaker 1: background music for this. Who knows, maybe our producer Jerry

72
00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:47,680
Speaker 1: will figure something out, so we'll have a little little

73
00:03:47,720 --> 00:03:51,000
Speaker 1: mood to here to set up the atmosphere. Actually, I've

74
00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:53,119
Speaker 1: I've prepared a power point so if you could all

75
00:03:53,200 --> 00:03:55,520
Speaker 1: imagine what it looks like as you are listening to

76
00:03:55,600 --> 00:03:59,720
Speaker 1: us talk, and you know that it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful.

77
00:03:59,760 --> 00:04:02,480
Speaker 1: It's it is stunning. I don't know how he got

78
00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:05,560
Speaker 1: this color saturation, tell you the truth. But um, let's

79
00:04:05,600 --> 00:04:08,280
Speaker 1: start with all right, we have a solid ink printers um,

80
00:04:08,320 --> 00:04:10,120
Speaker 1: which I think you are going to talk about a

81
00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:12,160
Speaker 1: little bit later because you have some sort of weird

82
00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:15,000
Speaker 1: fascination with solid ink. Yeah. Well, it's just one of

83
00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:18,240
Speaker 1: those things that's sort of really cool. Anyway, you were

84
00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:20,920
Speaker 1: going to talk about kind of prints. We'll go back

85
00:04:20,960 --> 00:04:24,520
Speaker 1: to it all right. You have the die sublimation printers,

86
00:04:24,560 --> 00:04:28,360
Speaker 1: which uses transparent film to transfer ink to paper. Um,

87
00:04:28,440 --> 00:04:32,240
Speaker 1: that uses a heat to do that. Um. There's thermal

88
00:04:32,320 --> 00:04:35,440
Speaker 1: wax printers, which are kind of the combination of die

89
00:04:35,440 --> 00:04:40,479
Speaker 1: sublimation and solid inc You've got thermal autochrome printers, and

90
00:04:40,520 --> 00:04:43,040
Speaker 1: that's where you have the ink in the paper already

91
00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:45,200
Speaker 1: and you just use heat to make the income to

92
00:04:45,279 --> 00:04:48,760
Speaker 1: make letters visible. So these are your other forms. Now,

93
00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:51,840
Speaker 1: those are kind of they make up a minority of

94
00:04:51,880 --> 00:04:54,680
Speaker 1: all the non impact printers that are on the market.

95
00:04:54,720 --> 00:04:57,360
Speaker 1: Like I said, the two biggies are ink jet and

96
00:04:57,480 --> 00:05:00,600
Speaker 1: laser printers. Now, did you want to talk about solid

97
00:05:00,640 --> 00:05:03,160
Speaker 1: ink before we move on? Well, you know, solid ink

98
00:05:03,240 --> 00:05:07,800
Speaker 1: is fascinating to me simply because, uh, you know, it's

99
00:05:07,880 --> 00:05:12,520
Speaker 1: it's actually pretty simple. Um, when you're loading your and

100
00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:14,640
Speaker 1: then we're talking about color printers here, so it's not

101
00:05:14,720 --> 00:05:17,880
Speaker 1: just you know, black, you can actually use a color

102
00:05:17,960 --> 00:05:21,120
Speaker 1: printer and instead of putting in a plastic cartridge filled

103
00:05:21,160 --> 00:05:24,640
Speaker 1: with a liquid ink or putting powdered toner in like

104
00:05:24,720 --> 00:05:27,240
Speaker 1: you were with an ink jet or a laser respectively. Um,

105
00:05:27,279 --> 00:05:29,640
Speaker 1: you actually use a block of solid ink it's sort

106
00:05:29,640 --> 00:05:32,360
Speaker 1: of it sort of looks like a giant square crayon,

107
00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:35,640
Speaker 1: or some of them aren't even square. Um, this is

108
00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:38,880
Speaker 1: a Xerox thing. I mean, it's it's Xerox's baby there

109
00:05:39,080 --> 00:05:41,920
Speaker 1: as far as I know. The only ones who actually

110
00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:44,680
Speaker 1: manufacture these, um, but they're pretty cool. They don't use

111
00:05:44,720 --> 00:05:48,200
Speaker 1: any cartridges. What it does is essentially it it melts

112
00:05:48,800 --> 00:05:52,400
Speaker 1: um this resin based non toxic ink uh and use

113
00:05:52,640 --> 00:05:55,839
Speaker 1: the uh. The ink it goes on the print head,

114
00:05:55,880 --> 00:05:58,000
Speaker 1: which transfers it onto the print drum. So when the

115
00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:02,159
Speaker 1: paper goes through the printer, the print drum actually transfers

116
00:06:02,160 --> 00:06:04,760
Speaker 1: the image onto their using heat and pressure. So that's

117
00:06:04,880 --> 00:06:07,960
Speaker 1: that's kind of a different technique to uh, you know,

118
00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:10,080
Speaker 1: spraying it, which was which is what you do with

119
00:06:10,120 --> 00:06:13,760
Speaker 1: ink jetsing jet printers make you know, complete sense from

120
00:06:13,760 --> 00:06:16,040
Speaker 1: hearing your name. It's a jet of ink being sprayed

121
00:06:16,040 --> 00:06:19,200
Speaker 1: onto the paper to make letters or pictures or whatever.

122
00:06:19,200 --> 00:06:23,240
Speaker 1: It is, right, and um, it's it's a spray that's

123
00:06:23,360 --> 00:06:27,240
Speaker 1: very very fine, a very fine spray. The the drops

124
00:06:27,360 --> 00:06:31,320
Speaker 1: are tend to be between fifty and sixty microns in diameter,

125
00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:34,240
Speaker 1: so that's pretty small human hair. Something I don't know

126
00:06:34,320 --> 00:06:39,600
Speaker 1: much about is about the diameter of seventy microns umpholically challenged.

127
00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:45,200
Speaker 1: But yeah, so so these are very tiny dots that

128
00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:48,960
Speaker 1: that come out in in really fast bursts, so several

129
00:06:48,960 --> 00:06:52,640
Speaker 1: bursts per second. I mean, it's it's it's remarkably fast.

130
00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:55,640
Speaker 1: In fact, it's so fast that that to us usually

131
00:06:55,680 --> 00:06:57,280
Speaker 1: if you see a piece of paper going into an

132
00:06:57,279 --> 00:07:00,200
Speaker 1: inkjet printer, a good inkjet printer, it looks like it's

133
00:07:00,200 --> 00:07:03,880
Speaker 1: constantly moving. It's really starting and stopping, but it's doing

134
00:07:03,880 --> 00:07:06,279
Speaker 1: it at such a high speed that it it looks

135
00:07:06,279 --> 00:07:09,520
Speaker 1: like it's a constant movement. But yeah, you have all

136
00:07:09,520 --> 00:07:12,640
Speaker 1: these little tiny nozzles in an ink jet printer that

137
00:07:12,640 --> 00:07:16,040
Speaker 1: that emit the ink, and um they do it in

138
00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:20,040
Speaker 1: a couple of different ways. Um so, but that's that's

139
00:07:20,080 --> 00:07:23,440
Speaker 1: the basic principle behind it. Eventually, the the when the

140
00:07:23,480 --> 00:07:26,600
Speaker 1: paper comes out, the ink dries, uh and you've got

141
00:07:26,640 --> 00:07:29,040
Speaker 1: your your printed page. As opposed to say the solid

142
00:07:29,080 --> 00:07:33,120
Speaker 1: inc format where you actually let the ink cool. It's

143
00:07:33,200 --> 00:07:35,600
Speaker 1: it's almost like like a candle, like if you melted

144
00:07:35,640 --> 00:07:37,200
Speaker 1: the candle and then let the wax cool and it

145
00:07:37,560 --> 00:07:40,680
Speaker 1: solidifies again. That's sort of the the way solid ink works,

146
00:07:40,680 --> 00:07:45,160
Speaker 1: whereas the ink jet type stuff it it just kind

147
00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:47,760
Speaker 1: of dries. So that's what you end up with the

148
00:07:47,880 --> 00:07:50,000
Speaker 1: letters on the page speaking of which is not the

149
00:07:50,080 --> 00:07:52,960
Speaker 1: kind of thing you want to get wet, right, because

150
00:07:53,480 --> 00:07:56,880
Speaker 1: speaking from personal experience, if you are working on something

151
00:07:56,920 --> 00:07:58,960
Speaker 1: and you like a spill your coffee on it or

152
00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:01,920
Speaker 1: something or glass water, you're pretty much going to ruin

153
00:08:01,960 --> 00:08:04,520
Speaker 1: an ink jet printed page. I think they've gotten. It

154
00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:08,280
Speaker 1: depends on paper and and things that you know, depending

155
00:08:08,320 --> 00:08:10,400
Speaker 1: on how well it soaks in, and of course, depending

156
00:08:10,400 --> 00:08:12,680
Speaker 1: on how well it soaks in, you can really splotchy

157
00:08:12,760 --> 00:08:16,120
Speaker 1: pages just from the ink jet printing on it. Early

158
00:08:16,120 --> 00:08:17,680
Speaker 1: ink jet that was bad about that. I had to

159
00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:19,720
Speaker 1: use a certain quality of paper with a certain amount

160
00:08:19,760 --> 00:08:22,040
Speaker 1: of clay content for it to actually show up and

161
00:08:22,040 --> 00:08:25,239
Speaker 1: not uh completely seep in and make a giant blob

162
00:08:25,280 --> 00:08:27,440
Speaker 1: in the middle of the page. Yeah, you can see

163
00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:30,000
Speaker 1: that in even high quality printers. If you don't, if

164
00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:32,640
Speaker 1: you don't maintain them and clean them often enough, then

165
00:08:32,960 --> 00:08:36,199
Speaker 1: you're going to have some some smearing issues. With ink jets,

166
00:08:36,720 --> 00:08:39,960
Speaker 1: the nozzles can clog to exact problems. And there's two

167
00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:43,240
Speaker 1: different two different kinds of of nozzles. We might as

168
00:08:43,280 --> 00:08:47,640
Speaker 1: well those as well. There's the thermal bubble nozzle, which

169
00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:50,240
Speaker 1: of course bubble jet right exactly. The bubble jet for

170
00:08:50,240 --> 00:08:53,600
Speaker 1: the subset of the ink jet family creates a small

171
00:08:53,640 --> 00:08:55,959
Speaker 1: bubble with the bubble burst that creates a vacuum, draws

172
00:08:55,960 --> 00:08:59,040
Speaker 1: in through the nozzles, sprays on the paper. Really exciting

173
00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:01,760
Speaker 1: science stuff. The other one is even more science if

174
00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:04,360
Speaker 1: you can believe it. Settle yourself here it goes the

175
00:09:04,440 --> 00:09:09,880
Speaker 1: piezo electric crystal method um. Now, piece of electric crystal.

176
00:09:09,960 --> 00:09:12,400
Speaker 1: That's the kind of crystal that if you run an

177
00:09:12,440 --> 00:09:15,440
Speaker 1: electric charge through it, it changes shape and vice versa.

178
00:09:15,480 --> 00:09:17,400
Speaker 1: If you change the shape of the crystal, it emits

179
00:09:17,400 --> 00:09:19,640
Speaker 1: an electric charge. These are the sort of crystals that

180
00:09:19,640 --> 00:09:23,080
Speaker 1: are in things like like like watches to keep time

181
00:09:23,120 --> 00:09:26,760
Speaker 1: because they're they're very they're very predictable. You know, depending

182
00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:29,200
Speaker 1: on the material you're talking about, you can you know

183
00:09:29,280 --> 00:09:31,480
Speaker 1: exactly how it's going to change shape depending on how

184
00:09:31,559 --> 00:09:34,600
Speaker 1: much of an electrical charge you pass through it. So

185
00:09:34,760 --> 00:09:37,640
Speaker 1: in this case, these crystals kind of act as a

186
00:09:37,720 --> 00:09:40,800
Speaker 1: valve for the nozzle and as the printer runs an

187
00:09:40,800 --> 00:09:43,760
Speaker 1: electric charge through it, it it allows inc to pass through

188
00:09:43,880 --> 00:09:47,520
Speaker 1: or blocks inc from passing through and that's how those work. So, um,

189
00:09:47,559 --> 00:09:50,520
Speaker 1: I guess we can move on over to the most

190
00:09:50,600 --> 00:09:54,280
Speaker 1: dangerous printer in the world, the laser jet laser printer.

191
00:09:54,720 --> 00:09:58,840
Speaker 1: These also use UH positive and negative electrical charges to

192
00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:03,160
Speaker 1: help with the printing process. Um i've i've actually a

193
00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:06,760
Speaker 1: little uncertain as too much charge. But the initially the

194
00:10:06,840 --> 00:10:09,959
Speaker 1: drum inside the printer, which is a smaller version of

195
00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:12,240
Speaker 1: the one you might see if you watch a video

196
00:10:12,280 --> 00:10:16,720
Speaker 1: about how they make UH newspapers or magazines. You see

197
00:10:16,760 --> 00:10:19,960
Speaker 1: these giant H drums rotating on a press. Well, there's

198
00:10:20,080 --> 00:10:22,960
Speaker 1: a smaller version of that inside your the laser printer

199
00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:25,080
Speaker 1: sitting on your desk or you know, down the hall

200
00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:30,880
Speaker 1: at your at your workplace. And basically they charge the

201
00:10:30,960 --> 00:10:34,560
Speaker 1: drum and put toner on the drum and a laser

202
00:10:34,559 --> 00:10:37,120
Speaker 1: passes over it and when the paper goes through, it

203
00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:41,720
Speaker 1: gets the opposite electrical charge and that helps transfer the

204
00:10:41,760 --> 00:10:45,960
Speaker 1: image onto the paper. Right, the laser just provides the

205
00:10:45,960 --> 00:10:49,360
Speaker 1: the correct charge to the right spots on the toner,

206
00:10:49,600 --> 00:10:52,839
Speaker 1: so that way the toner that has charged that way

207
00:10:52,880 --> 00:10:55,760
Speaker 1: will will transfer. All the rest of the toner won't transfer,

208
00:10:55,760 --> 00:10:57,679
Speaker 1: because otherwise all you would end up with is you know,

209
00:10:57,920 --> 00:11:01,040
Speaker 1: sheet completely covered in toner. So it's kind of neat

210
00:11:01,080 --> 00:11:03,800
Speaker 1: that they're using lasers to do this. That it's this

211
00:11:04,160 --> 00:11:08,920
Speaker 1: this really precise way to um to transfer inc from

212
00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:13,120
Speaker 1: the drum onto the page. And then after the that

213
00:11:13,120 --> 00:11:17,080
Speaker 1: that goes on the drum rotates another lamp, a very

214
00:11:17,120 --> 00:11:20,840
Speaker 1: powerful lamp is shown on the drum itself, which clears

215
00:11:20,880 --> 00:11:22,960
Speaker 1: the charge, so it prepares it for the next page.

216
00:11:23,400 --> 00:11:25,040
Speaker 1: Because if you didn't do that, then you would end

217
00:11:25,120 --> 00:11:28,240
Speaker 1: up with ghost images of previous pages. So you would

218
00:11:28,320 --> 00:11:30,439
Speaker 1: end up seeing like everything on page page two, you

219
00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:32,319
Speaker 1: would start to see a little ghost images of stuff

220
00:11:32,320 --> 00:11:35,840
Speaker 1: from page one, and then page three, the page one

221
00:11:35,920 --> 00:11:38,480
Speaker 1: images would be slightly lighter, but then you'd also have

222
00:11:38,559 --> 00:11:40,800
Speaker 1: the page two and it would be a big mess.

223
00:11:40,800 --> 00:11:43,000
Speaker 1: So you have to have a way to clear the

224
00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:45,920
Speaker 1: drum after each sheet, and that's how they do it.

225
00:11:45,960 --> 00:11:49,959
Speaker 1: They use this um this lamp to to to clear it.

226
00:11:50,400 --> 00:11:52,960
Speaker 1: And then as one last step before the page leaves

227
00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:55,160
Speaker 1: the printer, it goes through what's called a fuser, which

228
00:11:55,720 --> 00:11:58,600
Speaker 1: essentially melds the I really wanted to use the word

229
00:11:58,640 --> 00:12:04,960
Speaker 1: meld um. That melds the toner on into the paper fibers,

230
00:12:05,360 --> 00:12:08,480
Speaker 1: so basically it you know, fuses it together, glues it

231
00:12:08,520 --> 00:12:10,959
Speaker 1: together on there, so it appears in those letters until

232
00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:13,240
Speaker 1: you put it in a vinyl notebook, leave it there

233
00:12:13,280 --> 00:12:14,840
Speaker 1: for a while, then peel it off to find all

234
00:12:14,880 --> 00:12:16,480
Speaker 1: the dinner and stuck on the vinyl, and now you

235
00:12:16,520 --> 00:12:22,840
Speaker 1: have it when your notebook and reverse. Wow again. I

236
00:12:22,920 --> 00:12:27,080
Speaker 1: know this from personal experience. I was detecting a little

237
00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:31,520
Speaker 1: note of bitterness in that which one is better for which? What?

238
00:12:31,600 --> 00:12:33,920
Speaker 1: If you if you're looking for crisp colors, if you're

239
00:12:33,920 --> 00:12:37,200
Speaker 1: looking for speed, you know what which printer is best

240
00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:40,360
Speaker 1: for which application? In general, I think laser printers tend

241
00:12:40,360 --> 00:12:43,800
Speaker 1: to be the fastest. Um. They're the you're they're usually

242
00:12:43,800 --> 00:12:47,400
Speaker 1: faster than your ink jets. Uh. Although if you're printing

243
00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:49,840
Speaker 1: a lot um and you're printing in a hurry, you

244
00:12:49,840 --> 00:12:52,559
Speaker 1: should also be careful because those pages come out awfully

245
00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:54,920
Speaker 1: hot from the user. If you're if you're running a

246
00:12:54,960 --> 00:12:58,760
Speaker 1: pretty powerful printer, I speak from personal experience of the press,

247
00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:03,000
Speaker 1: Yes exactly, it is literally hot off the press. You

248
00:13:03,040 --> 00:13:06,720
Speaker 1: can you could actually scort yourself a little. Um. Now,

249
00:13:06,720 --> 00:13:08,880
Speaker 1: the paper is moving really fast with the fuser, so

250
00:13:08,920 --> 00:13:13,520
Speaker 1: it won't. It won't normally scort, unless, of course, something

251
00:13:13,559 --> 00:13:15,640
Speaker 1: has gone horribly wrong with your laser printer, in which

252
00:13:15,640 --> 00:13:20,480
Speaker 1: case that could theoretically happen. Um. But yeah, I seem

253
00:13:20,520 --> 00:13:22,960
Speaker 1: to I find laser printers to be to be the

254
00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:27,520
Speaker 1: best if you're looking for something like a high quantity

255
00:13:27,600 --> 00:13:30,400
Speaker 1: print job. If you're printing something that's like, say you're

256
00:13:30,400 --> 00:13:32,559
Speaker 1: printing reports, and you're printing out a hundred reports, and

257
00:13:32,600 --> 00:13:35,480
Speaker 1: each reports sporting pages long, a laser printer is gonna

258
00:13:35,520 --> 00:13:38,120
Speaker 1: do it a lot faster than an ink jet. Um

259
00:13:38,240 --> 00:13:41,520
Speaker 1: or your local copy center, Well, your local copy center

260
00:13:41,559 --> 00:13:45,719
Speaker 1: is very likely using a laser printer, so so it's

261
00:13:45,720 --> 00:13:48,480
Speaker 1: still the same. I doubt that they've got the Guttenberg

262
00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:52,040
Speaker 1: press back there, so um, so I would go with

263
00:13:52,120 --> 00:13:54,040
Speaker 1: laser most of the time. I mean now, granted, for

264
00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:56,360
Speaker 1: my own personal use, I have an ink jet because

265
00:13:56,400 --> 00:13:59,360
Speaker 1: I don't tend to do high volume print jobs, so

266
00:13:59,600 --> 00:14:03,760
Speaker 1: it's and a jet. The qualities nice. Uh um. The

267
00:14:04,320 --> 00:14:08,720
Speaker 1: cartridges aren't too terribly expensive, so that's what I stick with. Yeah,

268
00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:12,440
Speaker 1: they can. That's what you find for your your photo printers,

269
00:14:12,840 --> 00:14:15,720
Speaker 1: your digital photo printers, exact. The quality of the images

270
00:14:16,120 --> 00:14:20,120
Speaker 1: is considerably better. Well, I think we've we've we're all

271
00:14:20,160 --> 00:14:23,160
Speaker 1: printed out. I think we should we should lay this

272
00:14:23,200 --> 00:14:25,440
Speaker 1: one to bed. So, if you guys want to learn

273
00:14:25,480 --> 00:14:29,640
Speaker 1: more about printers, you should read how inkjet printers work

274
00:14:29,720 --> 00:14:32,480
Speaker 1: and how Laser printers Work, both of which are live

275
00:14:32,720 --> 00:14:35,920
Speaker 1: right now on how stuff works dot com. I didn't

276
00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:39,080
Speaker 1: even know Steve Gutenberg had a prints. I'm gonna hit

277
00:14:39,160 --> 00:14:43,680
Speaker 1: you so hard. Let us know what you think. Send

278
00:14:43,720 --> 00:14:50,400
Speaker 1: an email to podcast and how stuff works dot com,

279
00:14:50,520 --> 00:14:53,080
Speaker 1: brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

280
00:14:53,400 --> 00:14:54,600
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you