The Magical World of Copy Machines

While waiting for your turn at the office copy machine to get those latest reports or make duplicates of your grand proposal, you may have found your mind wandering to such things as by what magic does this copier produce exact replicas?

What sorcery is involved that allows for hundreds of cloned copies to shoot out of this bizarre machine at such a speedy rate? Well, today is your lucky day because thanks to the power of Wikipedia, we’ll spell out just how that commercial copier works, step by step.

Step #1

Charging: cylindrical drum is electrostatically charged by a high voltage wire called a corona wire or 

a charge roller. The drum has a coating of a photoconductive material. A photoconductor is a semiconductor that becomes conductive when exposed to light.

Step #2

Exposure: A bright lamp illuminates the original document, and the white areas of the original document reflect the light onto the surface of the photoconductive drum. The areas of the drum that are exposed to light become conductive and therefore discharge to the ground. The area of the drum not exposed to light (those areas that correspond to black portions of the original document) remains negatively charged.

Step #3

Developing: The toner is positively charged. When it is applied to the drum to develop the image, it is attracted and sticks to the areas that are negatively charged (black areas), just as paper sticks to a balloon with a static charge.

Step #4

Transfer: The resulting toner image on the surface of the drum is transferred from the drum onto a piece of paper with a higher negative charge than the drum.

Step #5

Fusing: The toner is melted and bonded to the paper by heat and pressure rollers.

A negative photocopy inverts the colors of the document when creating a photocopy, resulting in letters that appear white on a black background instead of black on a white background. Negative photocopies of old or faded documents sometimes produce documents which have better focus and are easier to read and study.

So, there you have it. It wasn’t Harry Potter or Harry Houdini after all. It was science that made your copies and printouts appear from thin air. Mystery solved. And speaking of mysteries, if you don’t know which commercial copier is right for your office, connect with the experts in all things copy machine at A1 Image. They’ll walk you through every possibility and determine the right fit for your office.