Chapter 10: Installing and Configuring Printers

1. A. Because the toner on the drum has a slight negative charge (–100VDC), it requires a positive charge to transfer it to the paper; +600VDC is the voltage used in an EP process laser printer.

2. C, D. A page printer is a type of computer printer that prints a page at a time. Common types of page printers are the laser printer and the inkjet (or bubble-jet) printer.

3. D. The rate of transfer and the ability to automatically recognize new devices are two of the major advantages that make USB the current most popular type of printer interface. However, it is the network printer interface that allows the printer to communicate with networks, servers, and workstations.

4. D. Dot-matrix printers are impact printers and therefore can be used with multipart forms. Daisy wheel printers can be used with multipart forms as well.

5. A. The writing step uses a laser to discharge selected areas of the photosensitive drum, thus forming an image on the drum.

6. B, D. Of those listed, only PostScript and PCL are page-description languages. There is no PDL or PageScript.

7. A. For the toner (which has a charge of –600VDC) to be transferred from the print drum (which has a charge of –600VDC) to the paper, there must be a positive, or opposite, charge of greater difference to break the –600VDC charge from the drum.

8. B. In a bubble-jet printer, the ink cartridge is the actual print head. This is where the ink is expelled to form letters or graphics. Toner cartridges are used by laser printers to store toner. A daisy wheel is the device that impacts the letters on the paper in a daisy-wheel printer. Paper trays are the storage bins in laser printers and bubble-jet printers that allow the pickup rollers to feed the paper into the printer.

9. D. The correct sequence in the EP print process is cleaning, charging, writing, developing, transferring, and fusing.

10. D. There are nine standard assemblies in an electrophotographic process printer. Early laser printers using the electrographic process contained nine standard assemblies. Newer laser printers do not require an ozone filter and contain only eight standard assemblies.

11. A, B, D. In an electrophotographic (EP) laser printer toner cartridge, the toner, print drum, and cleaning blade are all contained in the toner cartridge. The laser is usually contained within the printer, not within the toner cartridge.

12. A. After a laser has created an image of the page, the developing roller uses a magnet and electrostatic charges to attract toner to itself and then transfers the toner to the areas on the drum that have been exposed to the laser. The toner is melted during the fusing stage. The laser creates an image of the page on the drum in the writing stage. An electrostatic charge is applied to the paper to attract toner in the transferring stage, which happens immediately after the developing stage.

13. A, C, D. Printers can communicate via parallel, serial, USB, infrared, wireless, and network connections.

14. C. If a printer is using out-of-date or incorrect printer drivers, the printer may produce pages of garbled text. The solution is to ensure that the most recent printer drivers are downloaded from the manufacturer’s website.

15. B. The daisy-wheel printer gets its name because it contains a wheel with raised letters and symbols on each “petal.”

16. A. The high-voltage power supply is the part of the laser printer that supplies the voltages for the charging and transfer corona assemblies.

17. C. The transfer corona assembly gets the toner from the photosensitive drum onto the paper. For some printers, this is a transfer corona wire, and for others, it is a transfer corona roller.

18. D. Developing happens after writing. The correct order is cleaning, charging, writing, developing, transferring, and fusing.

19. B. The fuser assembly presses and melts the toner into the paper. The transfer corona transfers the toner from the drum to the paper. The printer controller circuitry converts signals from the PC into signals for the various printer assemblies. The paper transport assembly controls the movement of the paper through the printer.

20. A. Firmware upgrades for laser printers are downloaded for free from the manufacturer’s website. A technician does not need to install a new chip because firmware is upgraded via software. It’s unlikely that the manufacturer will send you the upgrade on a CD; it will refer you to its website to download it.