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Here is a list of 53 Printers categories. It encompasses a wide range including inkjet printers, production printers, barcode printers, id card printers, etc. You can search for an overview, principle, and usage of each category, as well as find manufacturers and distributors.
A printer is a device that prints text, images, and other information by fixing ink, toner, or other recording media on paper or alternative recording surfaces.
Printers can be broadly classified into two types: analog and digital.
Analog printers, like rotary presses and pad printers, apply ink to a plate and print ink on the media. They are suitable for printing the same content in large quantities and at high speed.
On the other hand, digital printing is a method of printing without using a plate There are various types such as inkjet printers and electrophotographic printers, which are suitable for small lot and on-demand printing.
Printers are sometimes categorized into home-use, business-use, commercial printing, and industrial-use, depending on their applications.
Inkjet printers are the most common home-use printers. Business printers are mostly laser printers and inkjet printers. Commercial printers are used for printing flyers, brochures, etc., using relatively large printing machines called production printers. For industrial use, there are various types of printers depending on the application. The type recording media is not limited to paper, but also include a wide variety of materials such as metal, cloth, and plastic.
3D printing, a stereolithography technology, uses only a recording medium to create a three-dimensional object. Unlike injection molding or casting, where the material is poured into a mold, 3D printers are called printers because they directly create a three-dimensional object without using a mold.
UV printers are printers that use ultraviolet curable ink as the recording medium, and inkjet printers are mainly used. The number of UV printers has been increasing in recent years because of their ability to produce highly robust printing without the use of volatile solvents.
In offset printing, ink applied to a plate is transferred to a cylindrical part called a rubber blanket, and then ink is transferred and fixed from the rubber blanket to paper.
In inkjet printing, the recording medium (ink) is ejected through small holes called nozzles and is imprinted on to the recording medium (e.g., paper). The principle of ejecting the recording medium is based on two main methods: the bubble jet method, in which ink is heated and foamed, and the piezo method, in which an ink chamber is deformed by a piezoelectric element and ink is ejected by the pressure generated at that time.
In electrophotography, toner is deposited on a material called a photosensitive drum, which is then transferred to and fixed on a recording medium such as paper. There are two types of electrophotographic systems: wet electrophotographic systems that use liquid toner and dry electrophotographic systems that use powdered toner.
*This ranking is solely among the companies registered with Metoree, sorted by the number of employees. Please use this as a rough guide to understand their scale.
