How does a daisy wheel printer work?

Answer 1

A Daisy Wheel Printer is an old fashioned impact printer, based on electric typewriter technology. All of the characters (letters, numbers, and punctuation marks) were on spokes radiating from a central axle and somewhat resembled a daisy, hence the name. The printing was relatively slow, but the impressions were incredibly clear as long as there was a fresh printer ribbon.

Answer 2

A daisy wheel has metal or plastic raised type around its edge. It turns to put the letter "A" , for example , to closely face the page, then a pin shoots out and presses the letter "A" onto the page. It then turns to repeat the process for the next letter, and so on. A rather slow and noisy process, if I remember correctly! To change the font, simply change to another daisy wheel.

Answer 3

The daisy wheel spins rapidly and when the printer's control mechanism determines the desired character is in position it fires an electromagnetic solenoid, driving the hammer against the daisy wheel, and causing the struck petal of the wheel to press the ribbon against the paper printing that character. The petal of the wheel springs back and the carriage is stepped over to the next position to be printed. The cycle repeats until the line has been fully printed.

Some daisy wheel printers always print only left to right, while others are capable of printing bidirectionally (printing characters from the end of the line back to the beginning of the line on alternating lines) to speed up printing by not having to waste time returning the carriage without printing anything.

Answer 4

David S. Lee.