Hardware

3.1 Input & Output

- Laser printer
- Inkjet printer
- 3D printer
- Microphone
- Speakers
- Touchscreen
- Virtual headset
Input & Output

Output
Input Processor Devices
Devices
Storage
Primar
y
RAM & ROM Off-
Second Line
ary HDD CD, DVD,
& SSD USB, SD,
Cloud
Hardware
• Computer hardware is the physical components of the
computer (the parts that you can touch)
• External components (peripherals) are the parts that you can
touch, for example the monitor, mouse, keyboard, and printer.
• Internal components (processing and storage) are housed
within the casing of the computer and include the processor,
the hard disk, memory chips, sound cards, graphics cards and
the circuitry required to connect all of these devices to each
other and to the I/O devices.
 Print colours

Printers use the CMYK colour

model unlike monitors which
use RGB. This is because
monitors emit light and paper
absorbs light. Black is
represented as black

Cyan
Magenta
Yellow
Black
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtXes1sgUb4

Laser Printers
 Laser printers
• Laser printers use
powdered ink rather
thank liquid ink.
• They use static
electricity to produce
the text and images on
the page.
• CMYK tonner cartridges
are used

Screens use RGB as they emit light and paper absorbs light.
• Data from the document is sent to the printer driver (software

works
How a laser printer
that communicate with the OS to translate the data into a format
understood by the device).
• Printer driver ensures that the data is in format that is
understood by the chosen printer.
• A check is made by the printer driver to ensure that the chosen
printer is available to print (busy? Off-line? Out of ink? Etc)
• Data is sent from driver to printer and stored in printer buffer
(temporary memory).
• The printing drum is given a positive charge. As the drum rotates
a laser beam scans across removing the positive charge in
certain areas, leaving negatively charged areas matching the
text/image of the page to be printed
• The printing drum is coated with positively charged toner
(powdered ink). As the toner is positively charged it sticks to the
negatively charged parts of the drum.

• The negatively charged sheet of paper is rolled over the drum

• Toner on the drum sticks to the paper to produce an exact copy of the page that is sent to the printer
• To prevent the paper sticking to the drum the electric charge on the paper is removed after a single rotation
• The paper passes through a fuser (set of heated rollers) where the heat melts the ink so that it permanently
fixes to the paper
• A discharge lamp removes all the electric charge from the drum so it is ready to print the next page
One off photos (few pages of  High quality fast printouts
good quality colour printing  Good for high volume
needed)
printing
Home or small office use
Low volume
$20 Cartridge Price $120
300(avg) Pages per cartridge 2,000(avg)
0.20$ Cost per page 0.08$

Cheap for low volume Expensive to set up

Cheap per page
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFuNd3LqsIc

Inkjet Printers
 Inkjet printers
• A nozzle sprays droplets of ink
onto the paper to form
characters/image
• An ink cartridge stores the ink
(either all in one cartridge or
one for each CMYK colour)
• Stepper motor and belt moves
the print head across the page
(side to side)
Screens use RGB as
• Prints line by line they emit light and
• Paper feed is used to paper absorbs light.
automatically feed paper
 How a thermal
bubble works

Tiny resistors create a localised

heat source which makes the
ink vaporise. This causes the ink
to form a tiny bubble; as the
bubble expands some of the ink
is ejected from the print head
onto the paper. When the
bubble collapses a small
vacuum is created which allows
fresh ink to be drawn into the
print head. This continues until
the printing is completed.
How Piezoelectric works
A crystal is located at
the back of the ink
reservoir for each
nozzle. The crystal is
given a tiny electric
charge which makes it
vibrate. This vibration
forces ink to be
ejected onto the
paper; at the same
time more ink is drawn
in for further printing
• Data from the document is sent to the printer driver (software

works
How a Inkjet printer
that communicate with the OS to translate the data into a format Same process as laser printer
understood by the device).
• Printer driver ensures that the data is in format that is
understood by the chosen printer.
• A check is made by the printer driver to ensure that the chosen
printer is available to print (busy? Off-line? Out of ink? Etc)
• Data is sent from driver to printer and stored in printer buffer
(temporary memory).
• A sensor detect if there is any paper in the paper tray if not an
interrupt is sent (message sent back to the computer). The
sensor also checks to see if the paper is jammed also triggering
an interrupt. Otherwise a sheet of paper is feed into the main
body of the printer.
• As the paper moves through the printer the print head moves form side to side across the page printing the
text or image. The ink colour are sprayed in their exact amounts to produce their final colour
• At the end of each full pass of the print head the paper is advanced a tiny amount to start printing the next line
until the whole page is printed
• If there is more data in the printer buffer the process continues until the buffer is empty
• Once the printer buffer is empty and interrupt is sent to the processor in the computer to request more data to
be sent. The process loops until the print job is complete.
tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx0Z6LplaMU

3D printer
 materials Filament is fed to the extruder
o Powdered Resin
o Powdered Metal

3D printers o
o
Paper
Ceramic Powder The extruder uses torque
and a pinch system to feed
Filament spool
and retract the filament in
precise amounts
• Produce a solid object
• The solid object is built up layer by
layer (additive manufacturing) A heater block melts the
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=U-8-lu4mq8o The heated filament filament to a usable
is forced out the temperature
heated nozzle at a The extruded material is laid
smaller diameter down on the model where it is
needed.

The print head and/or bed is moved to the

correct x,y,z position for placing the material
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRAAcYRH24E

Binder printing
2 passes
 Metal direct 3d printing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiUUZxp7bLQ
 PLA (thermoplastic) direct 3d
printing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3leeM1HHq8
Direct and Binder 3D printing
Print head moves left and right and up and down to allow building of
layers. Some printers base plate/printer bed move up and down rather
than the print head.

Binder 3D printing is similar to direct except this method uses 2 passes at

each layer. First pass sprays dry powder and then on the second pass
sprays a binder (glue) to form a solid layer.

Some technology uses lasers (metal) and UV light to harden liquid

polymers increasing the diversity of products that can be made
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7oxN-4qdSI&t=266s

What we use 3D printers for