International Business Machines Corporation

Albert N Garthwaite

Gerald W Baumann

Carl Douglas Hutchings

Luis A Suarez, Jr

Image defining toner is transferred to cut sheets and fused at one of two fuser stations. One station is positioned to fuse the image on one side when duplex copying or printing is selected. The other fuser station performs fusing when simplex copying is selected but fuses the second side copy for duplexing. When flash lamps are employed for the fuser station, the lamps are composed of multiple bays with a single power source coupled to each bay in sequence so that the power source size need only accommodate the power level demand of one bay. The time between trigger pulses is extended by commencing fusing with an intermediate bay followed by the initial bay and then the final bay as the image area requiring fusing passes along its path in proximity to the faces of the flash lamp bays.

Printers with simplex and duplex cut sheet fusing

A flash system for fusing or fixing thermoplastic resin such as toner onto an image support sheet includes a pair of flash fusing assemblies disposed in side-by-side relationship. Each assembly includes a reflector with a flash lamp positioned within said reflector. The flash lamps are coupled in parallel to a common energy charging source. The flash lamps are triggered alternatively so that each section of the support sheet is fused by a different lamp. In an alternate embodiment, a single lamp is moved at one half the speed of the support sheet. The lamp is triggered sequentially to fuse the entire sheet.

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Boulder, CO, United States of America

Albert N Garthwaite