Experiment : 7

Aim:To study printer assembly:

 Daisy Wheel Printer
 Dot Matrix Printer
 Ink Jet Printer
 Laser Printer
 Bubble Jet Printer

1) Daisy Wheel Printer: It is an impact printing technology invented in 1969. It is a type

of printer that produces letter-quality type.
It works on the same principle as a ball head typewriter. The daisy wheel is a disk made
of plastic or metal on which characters stand out in relief along the outer edge. To print
a character the printer rotates the disk until the desired letter is facing the paper. Then
a hammer hits the disk, forcing the character to hit an ink ribbon, leaving an impression
of the character on the paper.
We can change the daisy wheel to print different fonts. Daisy Wheel Printer cannot print
graphics and in general are noisy and slow, printing about 10 to 75 characters per sec.

2) Dot Matrix Printer: It is an impact printer that prints using a fixed number of pins or
wires. It is a type of printer that produced characters and illustrations by striking pins
against an ink ribbon to print closely spaced dots in the appropriate shape.
They are comparatively expensive and do not produce high-quality output. However,
they can print multipage forms (i.e. carbon copies), something laser and inkjet printers
cannot do. Dot matrix printers vary in 2 main categories:
a) Speed: Given in characters per second the speed can vary between 50 to over 500
cps.
b) Print Quality: Determined by the number of pins can vary between 9 to 24 pins. The
print quality is not very good and we can see the difference between dots if looked
 closely. Moreover, the noise factor is also a disadvantage.

3) Ink-Jet Printer: An inkjet printer is a type of printer that works by spraying ionized ink
at a sheet of paper.
Magnetized plates in the ink’s path direct the ink onto the paper in the desired shapes.
Inkjet printers are capable of producing high-quality print approaching that produced by
laser printers.
A typical inkjet printer produces a resolution of 300 dots per inch although some newer
models offer high resolutions. In general, the price of inkjet printers is lower than that of
laser printers. However, they are also considerably slower.
Another drawback of inkjet printers is that they require a special type of ink that is apt
to smudge on inexpensive copier paper.
As inkjet printers require smaller mechanical parts than a laser printer’s, they are
especially popular as portable printers. In addition, colour inkjet printers provide an
inexpensive way to print full-colour documents.

4) Laser Printer: A laser printer is a non-impact printer. It is the type of printer that
utilizes a laser beam to produce an image on a document.
The light of the laser alters the electrical charge on the drum wherever it hits, The drum
is then rolled through a reservoir of toner, which is picked up by the charged portions of
the drum. Finally, the toner is transferred to the paper through a combination of heat
and pressure. This is also the way copy machine works. As an entire page is transferred
to the drum before the toner is applied, laser printers are sometimes called as page
 printers. The available resolution of laser printers ranges from 300 dpi at the lower end
to 1200 dpi at the upper end.
In addition to the standard monochrome laser printers, which use a single toner, there
also exist colour laser printers that use four toners to print in full colour but they are
highly expensive.
Laser printers produce very high-quality print and are capable of printing an almost
unlimited variety of fonts and are very adept at printing graphics and are relatively fast.
The speed ranges from about 4 to 20 pages of text per minute(ppm). As they are in
impact printers they are much quieter than dot matrix or daisy wheel printers.

5) Bubble Jet Printer : A Bubble Jet printer is a type of inkjet printer. The difference
between an inkjet printer and a Bubble Jet printer is that a Bubble Jet printer makes use
of certain heating elements in order to prepare the ink, whereas an inkjet printer makes
use of piezoelectric crystals.
Bubble Jet printer are almost the same as in an inkjet printer, except that a tiny heating
element is used inside the nozzle. The ink is vaporized every time an electric impulse
reaches the heating element, thus creating a bubble which expands, forcing ink onto the
paper. Typically, there are 64 or 128 tiny nozzles in a Bubble Jet printer.
 Experiment:8
Aim:To Study parts of Keyboards :
 microprocessor and controller circuitry of a keyboard
 membrane keyboard

1. microprocessor and controller circuitry of a keyboard: the keyboard It has its

own microprocessor, which "runs the show" so to speak. There is also some read-only
memory (ROM) that runs this small processor, similar to the system BIOS code on the
motherboard. Programmable keyboards also contain some EEPROM memory to hold
programming information.
This internal circuitry has two fundamental jobs. First, it is responsible for sensing the raw
signals created by the keyswitches as they make electrical contact, and translating them into
signals that can be sent to the PC. Due to the electrical characteristics of keystrokes, this is
not as simple as it sounds.
Second, it handles the actual interfacing between the keyboard and the rest of the PC
system. The interface between the PC and the keyboard is a full bi-directional serial
communications line, with its own special protocols and commands.

2.membrane keyboard: A membrane keyboard is a keyboard where the keys are not
separated, are covered by a transparent, soft plastic and have very little movement.
Advantages of such a keyboard are portability as well as protection from damage and dirt.
However, they are not widely popular because of inaccuracy and slow typing speed.
Membrane keyboards have pressure pads instead of a mechanical key which upon pressing,
completes the circuit and sends the command of the given key. The keyboard has a flat
surface printed with symbols, the pressing of which perform the same tasks as a regular
keyboard with mechanical keys.