10 Crazy Facts About Printers

Apr 05, 2016

Most people have used a printer before, but very few take the time to learn more about the printer. The world of printers is much more exciting than you might expect! Here are some fun facts about printers:

  1. Fuser rollers get up to about 401 degrees Fahrenheit! Fuser rollers are the two cylinders that heat up to adhere the toner to the page. Yes, they get very hot--but the paper moves through quickly enough to not get burned.
  2. Toner doesn’t need much heat to melt. Funny, huh? Even though the rollers get so hot, you could probably melt the toner with just some warm water. So if you spill some toner on yourself, be sure to use cold water to get it out!
  3. About a gallon of oil is used to make one printer cartridge. We don’t use a gallon of oil in a cartridge. However, when we take into account the transportation and the process of manufacturing a cartridge, it equals about one gallon!
  4. Laser printers use more energy than your computer. Your printer is smaller, yes, but that doesn’t mean it uses less energy! A laser printer uses three times more power than a desktop computer while both are being used. However, when a printer isn’t in use, the desktop uses about five times more power than the printer.
  5. The world’s smallest printer is 2 x 2 x 11 inches. This is known as the PrintStik, and it’s made by Planon. At a meager 1.5 pounds, it’s quite portable. It’s a Bluetooth printer and it can hold up to 20 sheets of paper at a time!
  6. The world’s largest printer is almost 40 x 164 feet. This printer is known as Infinitus and is made by Big Image Systems. It can print an image up to almost 2,000 square feet! This printer is used for printing backdrops for TV shows, movies, and theatre productions.
  7. The fastest printers in the world can print 150 pages in a minute. RISO makes these printers, and did we mention that those are color prints? To put that into perspective, most printers today pop out color sheets at a rate of 15 to 30 sheets per minute.
  8. Three-dimensional printers can print food. Yes, they can print edible food! This is the printing of the future, and experts predict that most people will have them once the technology is solidified. These printers can also make things like jewelry and clothes, all the way to houses and artificial prosthetics.
  9. We have too many ink cartridges. If all of the world’s empty ink cartridges from one year were placed end-to-end, it would circle the earth three times!
  10. Ink is expensive! The retail cost of just black printer ink makes it one of the most expensive liquids in the world! It costs way more than oil, and even space shuttle fuel when compared by the gallon. It’s estimated that one gallon of printer ink currently costs around $2,700!

We hope you enjoyed these fun facts, and we look forward to helping you find your perfect printer at PrinterStop.