it seems like not that long ago that handing in a freshly printed essay from
your shiny new inkjet printer made you the coolest kid in class at least in
your own mind anyway but nowadays printers that could have cost you a
pretty penny in the mid 1990s are handed out like candy with new pc purchases and
it's never been easier to afford something that will inexplicably stop
working at 2: a.m. the night before your turn paper is due so how exactly do
printers work and what makes them well some of them so
unreliable now you probably already know that the two main types of printers for
Home and Office use are inkjet and Laser unless of course you've still got one of
those old dot matrix printers from the 80s cuz you get a kick out of tearing
off those little strips on the edge of the paper and both of them have
advantages and disadvantages which we actually briefly covered in this video
but let's have a look at them in a little bit more depth first up we've got
laser printers which use you guessed it
a freaking laser beam to create prints
Laser Printers also contain a rotating cylinder coated with a photosensitive
electrically charged material and a series of mirrors when you send a
document to a laser printer the laser light is reflected by the mirrors onto
the cylinder which neutralizes the electrical charge in specific areas
thanks to the rotation of both the cylinder and the the mirrors as well as
the laser turning on and off at precisely the correct moments the areas
hit by the laser correspond to the actual print and when toner particles
hit the cylinder they only stick to the areas exposed to the laser light because
the toner itself has an electrical charge too cool right then a sheet of
paper is pressed against the cylinder and the toner is transferred through to
the paper using heat which fuses the T owner to it which is why Pages fresh out
of a laser printer are always so nice and cuddly warm due to the Precision of
the laser these kinds of printers are great for producing crisp clear text the
other major player the inkjet printer is very very different like the name says
this sort of printer uses Liquid Ink instead of solid toner particles in
consumer models ink inside of those expensive cartridges is heated with an
electric charge causing a small amount to vaporize and form a bubble on the
nozzle the bubble then collapses and the
pressure difference pulls a droplet of
ink out of the cartridge and onto the paper because their internal workings
are simpler than Laser Printers they tend to be significantly cheaper and
although they can't print as quickly they give much better print quality for
photos making them the go-to choice if you like to print your own snapshots at
at home unfortunately though many inkjet owners have been disappointed by their
printer's reliability so then why is it that they seem to give people such a
hard time well part of it is because printers have so many small moving parts
that can break or wear out not to mention the small nozzles that can clog
easily but perhaps a bigger part of the reason is the business model of inkjet
manufacturers the printers themselves are frequently sold at a loss so ink
refills can cost more than the actual printers themselves also many cartridges
contain smart chips that report that they're empty even if there is still
leftover ink but fortunately there are workarounds for this you can find online
and we're even starting to see Alternatives appear on the market such
as epson's new system that uses permanent high-capacity ink tanks
instead of pricey cartridges which will hopefully usher in the day when we no
longer need to sell vital organs just to afford some vacation photo printting
speaking of things with small moving parts that need to be repaired iix it
ifixit.com is the world's free online repair manual they've got step-by-step
repair guides and Q&A with their massive
Community I mean we're talking they've got 15,000 plus repair guides for
iPhones iPads Macs Android devices other
computers etc it's all wiky based and therefore always up to date you know
hopefully as long as the community is on the ball which actually they do a pretty
darn good job of and ifixit.com is
totally free with no ads or annoying pay walls so how exactly does that work line
it's great question I fix it also sells
a wide variety of tools for repairing
all that aformentioned stuff with lifetime warranties on the tools by the
way they got everything like their prot Tech tool kit which we use all the time
with all these little hardto find bits and all these little adapters little
magnetic things so you can like grab stuff out of hard to reach places
they've also got their mat that helps you keep all your screws organized they
got their whole bag that's got the tech tool kit the mat and a ESD straps a
multimeter all that kinds of stuff so head over to ifixit.com
tequi and check out not only their guide so you can salvage some formerly not
working Electronics but also their tools which make the job a heck of a lot
easier and more fun if you're into that
sort of thing so thanks for watching guys if you like the video hit the like
button if you dislike hit dislike if you have suggestions for future fastest
posses please do leave them below and we will try and check those out I'll see
you guys next time