What are different type of printers?
Every one of us has come across what are different types of printers, some of them are known to us and some of them are not.
Maybe you are confused in your next printer purchase,
So let’s find out what are the different types of printers available in the market and what they are used for!
There are 15 different types of printers available in the market:
- Inkjet Printer
- Laser Printer
- Dot-Matrix Printer
- Thermal Printer
- Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) Printer
- Electrophotographic (EP) Printer
- Solid Ink Printers
- Digital Light Processing(DLP) Printer
- Material Jetting (MJ) Printer
- NanoParticle Jetting (NPJ) Printer
- Multi Jet Printers
- A3 printer
- Dental Printers
- Banner Printers
- Drum Printer
1. Inkjet Printer
An inkjet printer is also a type of non-impact printer. It is one of the most common types of printers available in the market.
This category includes laser printers, LED printers, dye-sublimation printers and much more.
Inkjet printers make use of cartridges or refillable tanks for their ink to print documents or photos. The number of ink colours that are used in the process varies from printer to printer.
The inkjet printers work on the principle of Piezoelectricity. The Piezoelectric print head is used for ejecting drops of ink onto paper.
It is one of the most commonly used printers & they are available at affordable rates. These printers come in different models & brands, which can be chosen depending on your need and budget.
2. Laser Printer
A laser printer works on a similar concept as a photocopier and an LED Printer uses that of a digital camera but it uses toner rather than ink like an inkjet printer.
A laser printer makes use of heat-sensitive paper, drums, ultra-violet lasers and more so it can expose areas to be printed with light and then transfer the image to paper. Many laser printer works smoothly online if your midco internet speed test result are good.
A toner cartridge is used in this type of printer, which contains a fine, dry ink-powder & it is then fused onto the paper using heat. The laser printing technology uses an electrostatic charge to transfer toner particles from cartridges onto heated metal drums that are uniformly charged by means of corona wires.
3. Dot-Matrix Printer
A dot-matrix printer is also a kind of impact sublimation printer. This type of printer is the least expensive and they are available in most homes for their personal use.
The printer head in this type of printer consists of a needle dipped in ink, which strikes against the paper to print dots on it. The speed and quality of printing depend upon how quickly & close together the pins can strike or hit the ribbon.
The commonly used printers in homes & offices are Dot Matrix Printers, as they print quickly. This printer is most suitable for printing simple text documents and graphs or charts with line drawings.
4. Thermal Printer
A thermal printer is a type of non-impact printer that works on the principle of heat-sensitive paper.
It prints by using a heating element that rapidly heats up to empower thermal energy, which is then transferred onto a roll of special heat-sensitive paper. The image is directly imprinted onto this special film-coated paper using steam-filled ink-pads (similar to old dot-matrix printers).
In January ’09 Apple patents revealed it was looking into more environmentally friendly printer cartridges that would use air to push out their contents. These would be known as air impact printers or air-jet printers, which may only contain a cartridge of small dots of ink rather than the usual bulky cartridges with the specialized print head integrated within them.
5. Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) Printer
An FDM printer is also called a solid imaging printer. They are printing technology used in rapid prototyping and it produces 3D objects by building up many layers with consecutive extrusions of material.
The process starts with an STL (STereoLithography) file or CNC data which sends the instructions to the machine about where to move & what speed to use, this keeps on happening until the product is ready.
Once it reaches its final form then it makes use of support structures that usually break away easily after finishing the printing work. This type of printer has become very popular due to its quick print speeds and low costs.
And today we see many companies offering different types of printers for homes & offices, such as HP, Epson, Canon, Brother & other brands. And they target their marketing campaigns for specific printers to attract the broadest audience base possible.
And since people are more into printing online activities like 3D designs or 2D images then it’s very much essential for them to buy a printer that offers reliable performance and speed in printing work. So we can say that today’s world is all about printers and whether you love to do lots of printing work or not at homes or offices; printers have become a necessity of our lives.”
6. Electrophotographic (EP) Printer
An electrophotographic printer is also a kind of impact sublimation printer. They are the most common type of printers used for office printing work and they have replaced all other printing technology.
An EP printer makes use of powder or toner that contains tiny plastic beads mixed with pigments in order to create an image on the paper.
The process starts by using a halogen lamp attached to the machine, it then charges up the powder & paint inside the toner cartridge so that it sticks firmly onto the drum & paper when needed at the time of printing.
Once the image gets transferred onto the paper, it then uses heat and pressure to set everything into one piece completely which later becomes permanent. So basically we can say that these types of printers are also known as laser printers because they use lasers to transfer images onto paper.
7. Solid Ink Printers
Solid ink printers are the type of non-impact printers which are used for office printing work and it makes use of solid sticks of CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow & black) in order to print images directly onto the paper.
They don’t require any cartridges or toner replacements as they have their specialized ink sticks that’s enough for them to print a single document.
The process starts by heating up these colours into a liquid form so that they become soft enough to transfer onto paper smoothly.
Solid ink printers offer very high colour quality with vivid colours and sharper text which makes things more beautiful when looking at printed pages.”
8. Digital Light Processing(DLP) Printer
The process starts by projecting an image onto the surface of photo-sensitive resin, this makes the non-cured areas exposed to oxygen & that’s why it becomes uncured so that we can easily extract the object out. And then we put it into water in order to wash away any excess uncured material.
So, in short, we can say that DLP printers have made 3D printing very popular due to its multiple benefits over other types of 3D printers. DLP Printers are a very old technology that is now being used for printing 3D objects by making the best use of digital light processing technology.”
9. Material Jetting (MJ) Printer
Material jetting is a new type of 3D printing technology which makes use of inkjet printers to create objects in three dimensions using different types of materials like plastic, thermoplastic & metals etc. It is also known as direct metal deposition and it uses CAD-CAM software to remove any extra material from an existing object or we can say that it’s the inverse process of the SLS method.
The main purpose behind creating this technology was to reduce costs & increase efficiency both; using less powder on larger objects and faster printing time in comparison to laser sintering machines.
10. NanoParticle Jetting (NPJ) Printer
If we talk about the ancient history of 3D printers, then it all started from 2D paper printers which later became dominant with new technology types like inkjet, dot-matrix & thermal sublimation etc.
And now after almost 50 years of 2D printing technology, a new printer has come up which makes use of nanoparticles i.e. a size 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair for 3D printing.” NanoParticle Jetting is one type of 3D Printing technology that not only creates objects but also creates them layer by layer.
Today, 3D Printing is something that has been properly utilized by many companies to bring their products into life. This technology can be used in the making of almost any type of object or we can say that it’s a versatile form of printing which offers huge benefits over other types of printers.
11. Multi Jet Printers
Multi jet printers are also called continuous inkjet printers. They work by spraying tiny droplets of CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow & black) on the paper just like standard office printers do.
Multi Jet Printers were made to improve the printing speed and it’s an inexpensive type of 3D printer which is very easy to use.
The best part about this technology is that the user can easily change its nozzle for different types of colors in order to print objects from various materials like wood, metal etc.”
12. A3 printer
A3 size printers are also known as large format printers which make use of huge roll paper for printing purposes. There are many types of A3 printers like bubble jet, inkjet, LED & Dye sublimation, etc.
They print very quickly and the best thing about them is that they offer high resolutions with vibrant colors which makes printed objects look very attractive.”
13. Dental Printers
Digital dental printers are used to make crowns, bridges and other metal parts for teeth using CAD designs. This technology has helped many dentists save time & money both; as well as bringing smiles back on many faces . Nowadays it’s mostly being used by dentists from all over the world.
14. Banner Printers
Banner printers are those types of 3D printers which print on large banners and paper in roll form. They can be used to print banners, flags & other promotional materials for companies.
15. Drum Printer
A drum printer is a type of non-impact printer as well and it works on the principle of rotating drums.
The paper is passed around a stationary drum that’s covered in toner, which sticks to the drum.
The paper then passes under another roller that transfers the image onto it.
The printing speed depends on how fast the drums can rotate & how close we can bring them together for transferring an image at one time.
Well, there are multiple other types of printers, but these are the common one’s, If you want to know about t printers in more detail, you are welcome to email me, I would love to share my knowledge about printers with you!
Cheers!