Lexmark International, Inc.

Other

Brian Keith Bartley

Kevin Dean Schoedinger

Johnny Ray Sears

Douglas Campbell Hamilton

Steven Jeffrey Harris

Jerry Wayne Smith

James Douglas Gilmore

Douglas Anthony Able

Steven Alan Curry

Cyrus Bradford Clarke

Larry Christopher Coleman

John Paul Brown

The present invention relates to printers and media fixing mechanisms such as fusers and management of fuser performance. An article, device, method, and system are provided in which the time to the fuser nip of a sheet of media may be calculated and may be compared to the fuser ramp time. When the fuser ramp time exceeds the time for the sheet of media to reach the fuser nip, the fuser may be turned on.

Method of tracking the virtual location of a sheet of media to improve first copy time

An image forming system () includes an engine controller () and memory device () with a power supply () supporting avolt,volt orvolt level. A fuser control capability indicator () is read by the engine controller () in order to determine the fuse control capabilities supported by the power supply () and, in conjunction, with a geographic region indicator of the system (), a determination is made as to the appropriate fuser control process to adopt based on the geographic region in which the system () is used.

System and methods for enabling geographically specific fuser control process

A system and method that controls the amount of energy accumulated at the collection location of a printing device to prevent image transfer or offsetting between sheets of stacked media, in particular, media of high thermal capacitance. This may be accomplished by regulating one or more of a combination of factors, including media process speed and sheet interval or pause time, while providing adequate fusing of the toner and an efficient printing operation.

Image offset prevention on plastic substrate media

An improved laser printer is provided that keeps its fuser at a standby temperature that is somewhat raised above the ambient temperature, which allows the printer to operate more quickly (to begin printing the first page) when a print job arrives at the printer. The time needed to raise the fuser's temperature is minimized, so that other printer operations become the determining factor in the time to first print parameter. The electrical energy that energizes the fuser is provided in a form that prevents light flicker, by use of AC waveform phase control, or by use of integer half cycle control. The present invention uses closed-loop feedback control, and the type of controller is a PID controller.

Method and apparatus for controlling temperature of a laser printer fuser with faster response time

To protect a belt fuser (,) a weighted value for sheets being fused is assigned which is larger for smaller widths and larger for longer length. For standard width media a negative value is assigned. A first count is maintained until it reaches a first threshold, after which (operations,and,), the printer is slowed to half speed, twice interpage gap interval and lower fuser temperature. A subsequent count is made of a second set of weighted values (action,). In response to the second count the interpage gap interval is increased depending on the size of the count and the nature of the media. For example (Table 1), narrow and long media is fed 2 sheets at 30 ppm, then 3 sheets at 15 ppm by slowdown, then 5 sheets at 9 ppm by increasing the gap interval during slowdown and the remainder of such sheets are fed at 5 ppm by further increasing the gap interval. Very short envelopes and paper are fed 10 sheets at 10 ppm and the rest at 15 ppm by the slowdown. As count 1 is reduced, it must be at an intermediate value before ending the slowdown, which avoids excess switching between full speed and half speed. This operates the belt fuser at temperatures avoiding damage from narrow media while throughput is good.

Belt fuser overheat control

An electrophotographic printing apparatus which eliminates overheating of the fuser belt when narrow gauge print media is utilized is disclosed. In this apparatus, a detection means determines whether a sheet of narrow gauge recording medium is being fed into the printer. When it is, the fuser heater is deactivated turned to a present lower temperature or is turned off when the narrow gauge recording medium exits the fusing nip. A preferred apparatus additionally contains means which measures the temperature of the heater once it is deactivated at predetermined intervals and, for each measurement, determines the amount of time required to bring the heater back up to the optimum fusing temperature. The preferred embodiment also includes a means for determining the amount of time it will take for the next piece of print media to travel from its current position to the fuser nip. This preferred embodiment then reactivates the heater when the time required to bring it back up to the fusing temperature is greater than or equal to the amount of time it will take the next piece of print medium to enter the fusing nip. This apparatus prevents overheating of the fuser belt which can accompany the use of narrow gauge print media. The application also discloses a method for fixing images using this apparatus.

Control of thermal heating in a belt fuser

A system and method employing a control algorithm that implements a closed loop ramp up of fuser temperature by traversing an arc of discrete temperatures leading to the steady state temperature. Ramping is the transient period beginning when the fuser heater is turned on, to the time when the fuser reaches the desired steady state temperature.

Growing community of inventors

Burgin, KY, United States of America

Brian Keith Bartley