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By rajendra-ranade
#6697
Laser printing on plain paper. Can it not be done by accurately calibrated laser just powerful enough to charr the surface of plain paper to create characters and images? Only basic scanner needed. No toner, no consumables. You can print on both sides too. Right from the time I heard of laser printers in 1973, I always thought that it would be this way. I am now 57 yrs and have been in computer maintenance field since 1968. I know xeroxes and laser printers' insides.

A little elaborate concept is as below..... For calibration, the laser burns a small square blot at top left corner of the page at increasing power and with help of a sensor, burns it just enough black. And
calibrates the laser for that paper (alternately, it can be precalibrated for standard grammage paper) Then it simply runs the machine. Afterall lasers can cut "corneas" (LASSIK sight correction) as well as diamonds. All the problems like safety etc have been solved there, and they may get solved here also.
#6747
hello
thanks for noticing the idea.
I am sure , if laser can be put to the most delicate as well as most heavy works, there should be a definit possiblity of printing direct by 'surface charring'.
Fire,pollution and all those problems are solved by designers everywhere.
Request please spread this idea and let there be cheeep printing for all.
rranade@sancharnet.in
User avatar
By Michael D. Grissom
#6857
Hi Rejendra-renade!

I accomplished this print-by-charing method in the early 1980's by firing high voltage arcs from the points of needles through the paper(s) to needles on the other side of the paper(s). High voltage loves to stream off the end of a sharp point. I was able to char-print through 9 part forms and all 9 parts were readable. It was my invention to replace line printers that required special expensive paper to print multi part forms and any printer that uses ink for B&W printing. I gave up on the idea simply because I saw that color printers would eventually be the preferred choice in the future.

So, what this means is that you're concept of 'true' laser printing by charing would work fine for single part paper with black & white print.

The unexpected problem that I encountered with my 'spark print' prototype was the tremendous amount of ozone that the sparks generated and the expense of the inert gas that I had to pump in to solve that problem. Ozone filters were not available at the time.

Hope this helps
By rajendra-ranade
#6892
Thanks for the response.
I had suggested this to HP a few years ago thru proper channels but got no response. Some other party may be interested in developing this. Just as you had ozone due to high voltage corona, surface charring may give out some paper burn-gases. How much , i wonder.
rajendra ranade
By Rishi
#7016
MDG,
That is a neat job! You will even be helping the enviro chaps (I'm one too) by adding ozone to the atmosphere, what with all the talk of fluoro-chloro hydro carbs playing havoc with earth's ozone layer.

In the present laser printers the laser can be small since only the drums surface charges have to be modified. In Mr. Ranade's case I believe that a higher power laser will be needed, which may entail a fibre optic manouverable delivery link. This will increase the bulk, and cost. Your idea was simpler because a spark CAN burn (Char, if you want it that way) in a highly localised manner. The overall power will also be low.

It may still be worthwhile to revive the direct spark printing idea. You may be able to refine the concept with the latest technology for spark generation and control.

Rishi
User avatar
By Steve
#7022
Rishi wrote:You will even be helping the enviro chaps (I'm one too) by adding ozone to the atmosphere, what with all the talk of fluoro-chloro hydro carbs playing havoc with earth's ozone layer.
Um... no. Ozone on ground levels is a hazardous polutant and has nothing to do with Ozone in the higher levels of the atmosphere - the two won't mix, either. Not sure if you were serious, but if you weren't you forgot the smiley. :-D
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