CHAPTER 3
THEORY OF OPERATION
This chapter includes three major topics:
•Color Fundamentals
•Card Path Elements
•Circuit Descriptions
3.1COLOR FUNDAMENTALS
The following offers readers a perspective on how imaging occurs in various systems, with a particular emphasis on card printers, their interaction with other system elements, and a comparison of techniques.
Color refers to the hues people see. This refers to the visual spectrum. People can see the whole spectrum when they look at a rainbow or at the dispersal of white light through a prism. The extremes of this spectrum are red (the longest wavelength perceivable) and violet (the shortest wavelength perceivable). The remaining orange, yellow, green, etc., shades lie between the red and violet extremes. Ultra Violet and Infrared spectrums exist above and below the visual.
A light source, such as the sun, generates the full range of color frequencies, which combine to produce white. Black results when light fails to reflect off of an object due to an absence of the object color in the source illumination or when a printed color prevents reflected light. Object colors converge toward black as source illumination decreases.