The Shocking Truth Inside Every Printer
by Jeremy Mueller · Parts Now! LLC · July 1, 2008 - page(s): 50-52
The dollar rises and falls. Presidential candidates come and go. The NCAA championship trophy gets handed off. And HP introduces new models every year. The one thing that is constant in our world is change.
But when it comes to electronics, the good news is that inside the printer, the basic electronic components remain unchanged. The electronics perform the same two roles that all electronic systems do: they control and process data and they distribute energy. Six key components are essentially the same across all printers:
- AC power supply
- DC power supply
- High-voltage power supply
- Scanner
- DC controller
- Formatter
That, in a nutshell, is the printer’s block diagram. Learn these six, and you are on your way to graduating as a real tech.
You may think that the DC controller does all the work in the printer, but in many cases it just relays messages. The DC controller is the brain of the machine. It receives all of the inputs, and determines what the printer should do. If there is a jam, it will shut down the printer until the jam condition is cleared.
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This article will be available online on 01/01/2009
