LED Printers Versus Laser Printers
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How LED and Laser Printers Work
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What are the Differences Between LED Printers and Laser Printers?
You don't have to settle for the older laser technology! |
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What does this part of the printer do?
To understand this completely would require an understanding of the electrophotographic process, but this can be summarized:
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A light source controlled by the printer's CPU shines light on a light sensitive drum creating an attractive charge like a magnet. The drum rotates past a toner store attracting toner particles where the light shone. The drum next rotates past paper to which the toner is transferred, making the image that is finally fused onto the paper.
The light source in the process can either be a relatively large laser unit or a compact Digital LED Array.
Here is the complete Digital LED light source in a desktop page printer with its top cover open.Notice the black bar on the top lid. That is the LED light source that replaces the laser in a regular laser printer. |
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| Scientists examined these two types of light sources carefully and conclusively decided that, the Digital LED light source was far superior. It consists of an array of thousands of individual digital LED light sources spanning the width of the image drum, shining through focusing lenses directly down onto the drum surface. |
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Superior image quality through more accurate drum illumination
The improved image quality can be explained by the design of the two types of light source. A laser source consists of a large relatively heavy, but delicate arrangement built into a large case. The case contains a single laser light source and a complex system of lenses and rotating mirrors that deflect the laser beam across the drum as it rotates. Complex timing is used to ensure that the laser can still produce a horizontal track across the drum surface while the drum continuously rotates. The edges of the drum are further from the laser than the center and so careful parallax correction must be employed. |
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Laser light sources for laser printers have improved over the last few years and many of the original print quality issues related to the technology have now been resolved however Oki still believes that the Digital LED source is still superior. This is why:
The Digital LED source consists of thousands of individual solid state Digital LED light sources that shine directly through focusing lenses onto the drum surface. The array stretches right across the drum thereby eliminating any possibility of parallax errors or timing errors.
Superior print quality through smaller dot size.
At 1200dpi, a theoretical ideal dot size would be calculated as:
25.4mm (1 inch) divided by 1200 = 20.4 μm (20.4 micrometers)
Laser heads can produce dot sizes of 60μm whereas Digital LED technology can produce dots as small as 34μm
The following three images show some 2 point text printed with laser and Digital LED technologies. (2 Point text is about 0.7mm tall !)
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| Lexmark Optra S2450 (Laser) |
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| HP Laserjet 4000T (Laser) |
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Superior reliability
The Digital LED light source has no moving parts and therefore is ultimately more reliable. In fact many manufacturers are so confident of the reliability of the source, some guarantee it for many years.
The Digital LED light source allows higher print speeds at higher resolutions than traditional laser light sources.
Superior Speed
As shown above, a laser head must scan the laser across the image drum for every line of data. There is a limit to how fast the drum can be rotated while maintaining the horizontal scanning integrity. As Digital LED technology utilizes multiple light sources, there is no 'scanning' action needed, so Digital LED technology does not suffer this disadvantage and can therefore print faster at higher resolutions. This graph shows how print speed is not related to technology for Digital LED technology but laser technology needs to slow down as resolution increases. |
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In summary Digital LED Technology advantages:
� Smaller, more compact size allows Oki to build smaller printers using less raw materials and less world resources.
� Smaller dot size gives sharper crisper text and graphics
� More accurate light sourcing gives better quality imaging
� Technology inherently able to work faster giving higher speed prints at higher resolutions
* Simple, no moving part technology, gives incredible robustness and reliability |
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Digital LED printer technology is present in all our page printers. The advantages of our technology become even more relevant in color printers. See the explanations of our Single Pass Color technology.
In fact Digital LED printer technology as a light source is so good that some of our competitors are now starting to adopt it for their own high quality printers!
A scan from one of our major competitor's literature: |
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| But have been pioneering the use of Digital LED technology in printing devices for many years!!
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| Laser systems rely on elaborate combinations of rotating mirrors and lenses that must remain in alignment through use. The laser scans from one end of a line to another, then zig-zags down to the next line.
LED technology uses a Light Emitting Diode printhead as a light source within the imaging device. Unlike laser systems, the LED printhead is solid-state and has no moving parts. The LED bar pulse-flashes across the entire page width and creates the image on the print drum as it moves down.
LED technology is the future. Oki is so sure of this that they guarantee the printhead of every OKI page printer for five full years, by far the longest warranty in the industry!
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The LED bar pulse-flashes across the entire page width and creates the image on the print drum as it moves down |
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| LED technology |
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Laser systems rely on elaborate combinations of rotating mirrors and lenses that must remain in alignment through use |
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| Laser technology |
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Printer Smoothing Technology®
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| Because of increasing user demand for heightened print quality, page printer manufacturers have been devoting a considerable amount of time and money on technological advancements in particular, those that will eliminate "stairsteps" or "jaggies" on type and graphics.
Smoothing Technology, changes size and placement of dots to fill in and smooth out the boundaries of letters and art. It is able to create four different-size dots which are grouped in varying combinations along the scan lines.
The result is crisper, better-looking output, with sharper edges and smoother curves and none of the jaggies.
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| Smoothing Technology changes size and placement of dots to fill in and smooth out the boundaries of letters and art. |
Smoothing Technology
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