What are the Types of Printers?

Since the printer was invented, it has been regarded as an important office equipment. Nowadays, there are many kinds of automatic printers in the market, and what type of printer to choose has become a problem for many people. The following content mainly introduces the common types of printers and their characteristics, so as to help you better choose printers. 

Types of Printers

According to the mode of data transmission, printers can be divided into serial printers and parallel printers. According to the working principle, printers can be divided into impact printers and non impact printers.

Ink-jet Printer

Serial dot matrix non impact printer can be divided into ink-jet printer and thermal printer. Ink-jet printer is the most widely used printer. The basic principle is that the charged ink directly forms the required glyph on the paper after the deflection by electrode. Its advantage is that the printed character has high resolution and the character is very clear. In addition, the size and font of characters can be easily and flexibly changed. The digital printer can be used to print characters and patterns directly on some products. Because this kind of printer has little mechanical wear during operation, it is very energy-saving, and its printing speed can reach 500 characters per second.

Thermal Printer

Thermal printer is a printer that uses heat to print patterns or characters on thermal paper. The main features of this printer are no noise, light weight and clear characters. But its printing speed is slow, and the printed characters are difficult to be stored for a long time.

Parallel dot matrix non impact printers can be divided into laser printers, electrostatic printers, magnetic printers and LED printers. 

Laser Printers

Laser printer can print characters and patterns on paper by laser. The main feature of this printer is its high printing speed, up to 20000 lines per minute. In addition, this kind of printer produces little noise when running, and the printed characters are very clear. 

Electrostatic Printers

The working principle of the electrostatic printer is to use the pulse voltage to form invisible characters or patterns on the special paper coated with dielectric materials, and then print the visible characters and patterns on the paper after developing, heating and other processes. This kind of printer is characterized by high printing quality, not easy to fade, and the printed characters and patterns can be preserved for a long time. But this kind of printer can only print special paper, so its use cost is high. 

Magnetic Printer

Magnetic printer is a kind of printer which uses magnetic medium to print words and patterns. The printer is insensitive to ambient temperature and humidity, so its printing speed is hardly affected by the environment. In addition, the printer has the advantages of simple structure and low cost. 

LED Printer

The working principle of LED printer is similar to laser printer, but its light source is LED. Therefore, the cost and power consumption of this kind of printer is lower than that of laser printer.