Lexmark International, Inc.

Albert Mann Carter, Jr

Gary Allen Denton

Cary Patterson Ravitz

Tao Yu

John Melvin Olson

Trent Duane Peter

Stanley Coy Tungate, Jr

Thomas George Twardeck

Joseph Edward Johnson

A toner formulation is disclosed comprising a binder and an IR absorbing black pigment at a concentration of 0.25-2.0% by weight, including one or more infrared transmissive pigments, wherein the infrared transmissive pigments are configured to provide a black color. Such toner formulation may provide a response to a toner patch sensor to indicate a mass per unit area of 0.1-1.5 mg/cmor a reflectance relative to a substrate to define a reflectance ratio that varies relative to L* values for the toner over the range L*=0-50 or a bulk reflectivity of greater than 6.0% for a portion of the wavelength range of 850-2000 nanometers.

Black toners containing infrared transmissive and reflecting colorants

The present disclosure relates to a method, system and apparatus for calibrating an image forming device using a toner patch sensor which emits and detects light in at a given wavelength. A plurality of toner patches may be deposited onto a control surface, wherein the toner patches include a first toner patch including a first toner, a second toner patch including the first toner deposited over a second toner, and a third toner patch including the second toner. Signals indicative of the reflectivity of the plurality of toner patches and the control surface may be measured by emitting light of a given wavelength in the infrared spectrum and detecting the amount of incident light reflected from said plurality of toner patches and said control surface. The signals indicative of reflectivity may then be used to adjust operating parameters of the image forming device which may then control toner mass density.

Toner calibration measurement

Artificial toner consumption is triggered to minimize the incidence of &ldquo;conditioned&rdquo; toner when a comparison of the rate of toner consumption to the mechanical activity of the electrophotographic printing device indicates that the toner consumption rate is too low. The artificial toner consumption operation may be achieved through a dummy print operation where an intentionally un-printed image is formed on a photoconductive drum, but the corresponding toner is routed to appropriate waste toner reservoir(s) and the image is not printed on the recording medium. The dummy print toner may be cleaned from the photoconductive drum without being transferred to an intermediate transfer medium and/or may be cleaned from the intermediate transfer medium, both without transferring the toner to the recording medium. The dummy print operation may correspond to a next normally occurring interdocument gap or a dedicated dummy print period inserted between print jobs.

Method of compensating for low toner consumption

Growing community of inventors

Richmond, KY, United States of America

Albert Mann Carter, Jr