How do printers work? simple: they don't

I have yet to meet anyone who had a flawless experience with an inkjet printer.

You forgot to mention that printers smell fear.

Printers are an amazing feat of engineering. They work perfectly fine until you need something last minute, then they inexplicably stop working.

Screw companies that rely on overpriced ink to sell their crap! I don't think that a Kg of 3D printer filament should be *less* than a single cartridge.

I've watched so much Linus that whenever anyone says "speaking of" I know I can leave the room because I assume it's an ad integration.

My HP printer thinks it's funny to download software updates EVERY FRICKIN TIME I PRINT SOMETHING.

The laser explanation was very good but ONLY for a black laser printer. For colour you have another transfer medium called an "Image Transfer Belt" which transfers the toner from the drums CMYK, creates the image on the belt then transfers it to the paper. If you were interested. Source: I'm a Konica Minolta repair tech.

My printers great, it will print half of one page then spit the other half out blank...

So in short, get a laser printer. They just work.

Those Epson EcoTank printer spit out a shit ton of that ink into the “maintenance box” for “cleaning the printer heads”

Forgetting randomly installed programmed obsolescence and programmed malfunctions when certain specific conditions are met. I have worked for one one of the largest producers of inkjet printers can solidly confirm that this malpractice has been going on for many years.

"PC Load Letter", the fuck does that mean?!

Actually matrix are still widely used in some company because they are extremely reliable and can print triplicates in one pass. Also, the refills (and therefore cost per page) are dirt cheap

I dont get why people will print photos at home. they know that ink is expensive yet they do it. You can take all your photos and get them printed at a store that does it for few cents each And you gotta love toner which is just tiny particles of plastic

Okay Linus. I have a story about my Epson XP 320. I was printing an article from the web. I set my printer preferences to print in black and white: That did not work. The printer continued to print the document in color. So i saved the web page as a pdf file, set the preferences to black and white, then printed from adobe acrobat. the printer still printed in color. So I printed the document to a pdf file again, but set it to print in black in white. When I opened the new pdf file my screen displayed a document in black and white. "viola!" I thought...sure enough the god damn printer still - STILL printed in color! - meaning the printer is printing from memory and ignoring my preferences and the fact the document I printed is literally IN black and white. I had to open the black and white pdf file in a different pdf viewer in order to print in black and white (even then, i cant be sure the printer is not using some kind of composite that ends up using color cartridges anyway). As you know, the printer will not print if any of the cartridges are expended and will require the expended cartridge(s) to be replaced in order to continue printing. I have a new black ink cartridge, and did not want to use the color cartridges because i didn't need them. But the printer seems to be programmed to force color cartridge use for the purpose of seizing and prompting you to purchase more ink in order to continue printing. This seems a lot like a kind of ransom ware in you asked me. Clearly choosing not to print in color required using workarounds and just selecting the option to print in black in white from printer preferences is not enough. Am I missing something here?

this linus is everywhere wtf

back when our biggest concern was the inability to print with our inkjet printer.

Ohhhh printers. Sigh.

As a student on a bored afternoon I took apart an inkjet printer and found a plastic strip with graduations marked on it. I out the printer back together without this and it turns out it was what closed the feedback loop on the position control for the print head. Was great fun turning it on - the print head slammed back and forth at full speed!

You should mention LED printers too. They work somewhat like laser printers but don't have mirrors in them, so they are sturdier. Also they don't run a line and then continue at the start of the next one, but print each line as a whole, each letter simultaneously. We have some in the university and they are crazy fast.

You should do printer reviews... there are no good videos on the HP m553dn :P But seriously, printer shopping is hard. Especially if you want to print text fast, and print photos good, and you aren't sure if the scanner is worth is, and you have to figure out if the toner or ink will be worth it.

good video as always linus. im a inkjet tech printers i work on and maintain are 15 feet long cost $1 billion each theres 6 of them i have to take care of the tanks on them are very large blue,black,white,brown and beige are the colors they use each tank holds 3 to 4 gallons. takes about 2 to 3 hours to use up all the ink

Good video man! I learned something today!

nh you are the cool kid in class when you hand in your essay on A1 paper from a plotter so impractical but so entertaining

I love this guy! Not only is he informative (quickly), he's entertaining and cute. All the better to learn by. LOL.

I actualy had one of those old printers from the 80's when i was a kid, my grandfather was like "Its an amazing technological advanced something something" and he probably still is haha

a small loan of a million dollars $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Excluding my 1990s inkjet, I've had three since then - the first, bought in 2004, had the power brick fail immediately and was replaced by the manufacturer. It's replacement still works to this day. My current printer was bought in 2011 and still works. I haven't seen any reliability issues with inkjets. The £100 laser printer at work, however...

I'm that dot matrix guy - 1987 still rules my printing world! Really cheap to run too

I like the lighting in this video, it's good

Inkjet printer: we need to be online to print. *Me setting it to print offline and seeing the long cord tethered to my desktop across the room.* Printer: wE neED tO Be oNlinE!

The "Cylinder" is normaly known as the Drum or OPC (from the old days; Organic photo conductor). The toner is transfered to the paper with help from a grounded roller on the back side of the paper, known as the Paper transfer roller(PTR). Meaning the toner isn't transfered by being pressed against the Drum, but by moving the electronic charge towards the PTR as the paper passes through between the Drum and the PTR. How the charging between negative, positive and ground is setup, varies between models.

0:56 I was expecting him to say "But let's look at them in a little bit more depth. Color Depth!"

I want to see a "Tech off" video between you (Linus) Jay (Jays two cents) and Logan (Tek syndicate). A battle of tech knowledge to see who is the ultimate tech guru.

1% actual printing 99% crash bandicoot sound effects

Working on ink jet printers and laser printers since both technologies were introduced; I find in my humble opinion that today the optimum choice is laser printer for standard everyday printing. This includes color laser printing. Ink jet printing's biggest drawback is the ink itself. It is messy and relatively expensive. If you don't print often the ink in the nozzle tends to dry out and clog. Sometimes the ink will drip within the printer and eventually stain paper. And the cost of cartridge replacement is still high in relation to print yield. Which causes most ink jet users to not want to print regularly enough to keep the ink flowing to mitigate dry ink nozzle clogging. Laser printing provides more print yield per toner cartridge and is not prone to dry out. Laser printers do have issues such as toner settling and caking if not utilized for several months but this is typically solved by gently shaking the cartridge horizontally for a few seconds. The image transfer drum eventually does wear out and will need replacing however the typical life expectancy can easily last 3 to 6 years with average printing usage. Due to proliferation of monochrome and now color laser printer manufacturers the price of laser printers and toner cartridges have significantly dropped making them affordable. Ink jet printer technology still has the advantage in regards to printing large scale documents such as blueprints, banners, and graphics larger than 11x17 format.

My inkjet printer always says that the ink is expired even though I only refilled it a month ago, but if you just take the cartridges out, and put them back in, and it says they're good. It's really annoying that I have to do that every single time I print something, and I'm wondering if it's a glitch.

Okay Linus. Which one of your employees played SCP Containment Breach? At 3:54 to 3:58, the scream in the backgrounds was SCP-096!

+Techquickie Well it is a somewhat good Demonstation at 1:46 to visualizze the Process but I think you could've picked a better picture becausse what you showed was a Sheet - Offset Printing Machine which works totally different from a Laser Printer (Also known as Electro Photography).

Dye-sublimation is another printer type that is popular too!

I would recommend going with Epson , specifically L355 model I had it for a year now, still not even half of the ink is gone. I printed over 1500 pages maybe. But looking at HP printers, two of them broke before one year with me.

The stores around where i live have begun selling inkjet printers that does not include cartridges on purchase. I'm so happy that i got a HP LaserJet 1010 free from a company i worked for. The only downside is i have to bodge the driver to make it print. I don't need a more advanced printer. Since i rarely print anything, and when i do i mostly print documents, forms or postal pick up notifications.

brilliant quick and affective 👍🏾

Great transition mate

IFixIt sponsoring a video about inkjets... how fitting. IT'S 2023 AND INK PRINTERS STILL SUCK AND THEY CAN'T BE REPAIRED. Linus, time to do something. ay?

holy shit! a sponsor spot that actually makes sense!

The laser thing is weird for me xD but it's nice tech

I remember someone giving us a box of that for matrix paper as a kid (mid 2000s) the best use my mom could come up with it was to give to me to draw on. yes i was amused by the fringies on the side.

lol, I just litteraly just came back from my local tech shop to get such an epson printer, then I saw you uploaded a video Kappa

there is a linus ad on this linus video. amazing

What printer would be the best value for lead sheet music and e-receipts? Should I use one from Walmart or is there a better one?

I have found out abot ifixit yesterday :)) before I see your video. I was looking for some info on an old printer (which gives me a sweet error on the color cartride). I will try refilling it. However it shows there is a problem with the cartrige, not that is empty.... and besides, all refilling materials online show a different color order in the cartrige ink compatments, which is odd comparing to my cartrige.

which printer is best for photocopy? & very cheap price & printing cost??

here is my tip to save money on printing: go buy a canon inkjet printer. bought 8 XL ink sets (5pcs each), for 30 euro, and if you live in germany its 20 euro (10 euro was the post, couldnt you guys use smaller package?...) and why i say canon instead of hp? well, because for some reason the ink are sold cheaper in ebay while they have equal or even bigger volume of ink, and the second reason is that the drivers do not force the printer to stop if it report there is no ink. i had printed close to 50 colored pages AFTER they were supposed to be empty with the stock normal capacity inks the printer came in. my model is MG5650 meanwhile my friend who bought a hp printer (even after sharing with him all my bad experience with their reliability and drivers) his stock ink were not even printing

OOOOOOH!!! Linus's hand went in front of the pop up video suggestions rather than behind!

Linus is every computer science kids 3 am saviour

thank you linus, explained well 😁

From working retail at an office supply store, this is home printing according to customers: -No brand is safe they all either cost too much or break (pretty sure it was your fault for letting the cartridges dry out 10 times) -Lasers are never worth it (even though they totally are and for a lot of people laser would be a better fit than an inkjet) -Replacement parts are easy to grab so there is no need to look up how much a printhead costs (no... just, no.) -This man must be lying to me, surely all these printers are different (no they are not, the hp 8620 is a rip-off compared to its little brother) -Brother has support staff in North America, so much better than [brand name here] (that has nothing to do with the quality of the printer...) -I didn't know Samsung made printers, they must not be very good if I have never seen them (...sigh...) -I'm pretty sure my other desktop printer can go bigger than 11x17 (And I'm pretty sure you have no idea what 11x17 looks like!)

4k in 2015? linus making bank

Do Brother Laser printers sometimes develop lighter prints towards the end of the toner cartridge's life. I do use aftermarket cartridges. Thanks for any replies.

0:40, we have one of those!

Hi , is there any way around to customize the printer firmware ..

we have continuos ink kits now, I bought a cheap printer with one of those kits installed, printed like 500 pages in color and black and white in one sit, all ended up being cheaper than going to a printing center.

this channels fucking great, it answers questions I didn't even know I had

thats linus from linus tech tips subscribed

Got tired of the ink costs for my families multi-function Ink Jet, and replaced it with a Color Multi-Function Laser. It cost about $300, which was twice as much as what I paid for the Inkjet, but since we didn't print a lot and the ink kept drying out, I made up the cost difference in the first year. The printer came with half capacity toner cartridges to get you started, and I have only replaced the Black one thus far. They are not quite 3x the cost of the Inkjet Cartridges, but they print a ton more pages and don't dry out or clog.The quality of the printer seems better as well, as in less jams and missfeeds, and though I don't print many photos, the few I have printed haven't seemed to be much lower quality than the inkjet. In fact one of the photos I printed was for my Passport Renewal which the Government accepted just fine.Honestly, if anyone asked me I would say not to bother with a Inkjet anymore unless you would use it a lot.

What temperature is used?

1:03 Thanks Linus... Cracked my screen

I use a dot matrix in my Biochemistry lab sessions, still. I got it cought up the other day, and ist tried sucking the paper into it in a loop.

Clear video, thanks

How do you guys make up that awesome short? My friends and I are trying to make a video school project and would like to look at you as a reference. Any answer? AS FAST AS POSSIBLE PLEASE!

video suggestion: SCANNER. what they are, how they work and how to use them?

It is a nice and useful video. Starink toner cartridge- start different.

If toner particles also have a charge, then they should stick to oppositely charged particles or surfaces. If the laser beam neutralises the charge on the surface of the drum, I don't think it will stick on there. An error or is there something I don't know or did I make a horrible mistake here? Either the areas touched by the laser correspond to the blank areas on the paper or that the laser actually charges particles on the surface of the drum.

Does the type of screen influence if your are getting tired faster?

My printer is not showing up in any of my programs on windows 10 and when i try to use my android phone it says internal error. It use to work in the past whenever i tried using it on both the phone and pc so idk what's going on :(

When printing, laser or ink.... Does photos become better if you make the printer print slow vs. fast? When it's taking it's time, does it yield a better result?

Yes but which printer should I get to counterfiet money. Im thinking a Ricoh, but what model?

hi there, i'm planning to buy an Epson PRINTER- but there are two identical printers (ET4550 and L655) what do you think about the L655?, couldn't FIND review of the L 655 ON EPSON Official site. which is the latest? what do you recommend?, anyone?....thanks.

Hey Linus, what kind of printer do you recommend for inventory barcode labels? My budget is $120.00 USD.

I bought an Epson ink tank printer a while ago and man this thing is freaking awesome, printed almost 2000 black pages and still 20 percent of my black tank is left.

Future Fast as Possible Sugestions: What are Disk Images Best password practices/password managers Best back up solutions

3:56 HP has then in Canada at around $500.00

actually, Epson uses a different kind of inkjet tech. Traditional Inkjets use heat to expand and cooling to contract the ink head. Epson uses electrical impulses which makes them faster and more durable. Also, they are trying to get out of the cartridge scheme with their new Ecotank line, with cheap tanks that hold ink for up to 2 years (ISO average) of prints for the same price of one cartridge set.

Nice work man

Can we get an as fast as possible that explains different raw performance numbers for computer components? Like texture rate, pixel rate, and floating point performance.

ifixit is really badass. I like that site. It gave me the instructions I needed to finish breaking my 3DS. I've had it in my bookmarks for while now. Nice to see something getting advertised that I actually like and have used. Only thing better then a Do it Yourself site is actually being able to follow the instructions they provide with some level of competency.

Did they ever make a video about the printer dots tracking codes and stuff?

Beardless Linus was way nerdier than I remember

I have a laser printer, and i noticed, that the prints have too much red on them. But i don't know if it is the fault of the printer. My monitor has a TERRIBLE TN panel, and i heard that they really suck if you need true colours.

Thank you .!!

You need to do an update on printers why are they so expensive now and why haven't they evolved.

can you explain the type of transitors particularly the finfet the mosfet and etc , other than this topic can you explan us brieflyy about the history of intel and amd and their achievement as well.

B+ for mostly getting the laser print cycle correct... close enough for consumers.... bonus points for naming the process of charging the toner in the developer unit.........

So a laser printer is the same as a toner printer? I own a printer, but I refer to it as toner always. I'm pretty sure the pages aren't warn the moment after they are printed. It uses "toner cartridges".

Thanks Linus.👍

I wanted to know how the mechanical part that pulls and places the paper works :/

Eminem explaining how printers work! Now I have seen everything in life.

We need an open source project to 3D print and assemble affordable printers and ink cartridges