International Business Machines Corporation

Carl A Queener

Frederick W Johnson

Gary A Clark

Anthony J Dattilo

Howard E Munzel

Larry Mason Ernst

Bernard L Wilzbach

Ronald V Davidge

Earl G Edwards

William D Clark

James Charles Rogers

John Maury Woodward

William Richard Cardwell

William E McCollum

James T Vanderslice

James F McDonald

A closed-loop photoconductor belt capable of transmitting light from its inner surface to a photoconductive layer is imaged on the internal surface after charging of the photoconductive layer. A developer transfers toner to the image area on the external surface of the belt, while scavenging residual toner from the belt external surface. The image representing toner is transferred from the external belt surface to a copy medium at a transfer station. A back-lighting erase lamp and biased AC pretransfer corona improve transfer efficiency and suppress background transfer during the transfer operation, respectively.

Xerographic apparatus and process with backside photoconductor imaging

The invention concerns a method and apparatus for operating a multibin sheet collator, particularly a copier/collator installation. Additional to the number of sets to be collated, the number of sheets contained in each set is entered into the collator logic. If this number of sheets in a set exceeds the capacity of a single collator bin, adjacent bins are grouped together and treated as one virtual bin with increased capacity, thus extending the collator usage. Sheets exceeding the total capacity of the collator can be fed into additional receptacles.

Method and apparatus for adaptive collation

Original document images are reduced to half-size or smaller and introduced to a photoconductor surface in a xerographic copier environment. Sequential images are oriented relative to a copy sheet so that two or more images are transferred to the copy sheet in a matrix pattern. Duplexing of the copy sheet allows recording of a double matrix on one copy sheet.

File compaction apparatus and method for copiers

A copier-printer is employed in conjunction with an optical scanner and associated character recognition logic to transmit information contained in a document over a telephone line or other communication line. The copier-printer is used to make a copy of the document which is stored in the duplex tray. When a buffer memory associated with the communication line is ready to receive further information for transmission, the copy is retrieved from the duplex tray and circulated through the copier-printer to the optical scanner. The scanner provides the information from the copy to the buffer memory in a non-coded format except to the extent that the character recognition logic is able to code some or all of the information. The copy is advanced from the scanner to a mailbox in the form of a limited access compartment at the bottom of the collator for the copier-printer. The copier-printer may be used to receive information transmitted over the communication line by temporarily storing the information in the buffer memory and then printing the information on paper which is routed to and stored in the mailbox. Information provided to the print buffer for printing can be checked for printing accuracy by scanning the resulting printed paper using the optical scanner and comparing the scanned information with the information originally entered in the print buffer.

Information transmitting and receiving station utilizing a copier-printer

A moving document copier machine with a hinged cover of a recirculating semiautomatic document feed device for pivoting away from the top surface of the machine to expose the document feed path and enable the copying of a book or like object. A spine or rail means is provided along one edge of the document feed path to receive the center break of an opened book. Roll means interior to the document feed path support that portion of the book to be copied as it moves across the viewing station while other rollers, exterior to the document feed path, support that portion of the book not to be copied. A gate is provided to register the book.

Method and apparatus for limiting book wear while being copied

Documents are automatically recirculated for copying by a copier from a stack which is accessed top document downward. Documents are stacked faceup in an upper tray and moved as a group to a lower tray where they are stacked facedown, with the first document in the upper tray appearing in a facedown position at the bottom of the lower tray. The top document in the lower tray is then removed for copying and returned to the bottom of the upper tray, thus peserving the original document order for further copying. The copier normally scans stationary documents placed on a glass platen; for example, individual sheets of paper or book pages may be placed on the glass platen and held stationary while the optics causes light to scan the page. During automatic recirculation of stacks of the documents, however, the scanning optics is 'parked' and documents removed from the lower tray are imaged while scanned past a fixed exposure area on the glass platen on the way back to the upper tray.

Recirculating document feed for electrophotographic apparatus

Non-coded and coded information are merged in a copier-printer system by copying the non-coded information onto one or more sheets of paper during a first pass of the sheets of paper through the system and thereafter selecting the sheets of paper with the non-coded information copied thereon from the secondary or duplex paper trays of the system for a second pass through the system during which coded information may be printed on the sheets of paper. Selection of the sheets of paper having non-coded information copied thereon is integrated with sheets of paper from the primary tray which are to contain exclusively coded information. Copying of the non-coded information and printing of the coded information is carried out under the control of mag cards indicating the pages and page locations within a given document where the non-coded information is to be copied and in some cases containing coded information to be integrated with the non-coded information. In one method, non-coded information is copied on sheets of paper which are then electronically collated and inverted before being removed as a stack from the exit tray and placed upside down in the secondary tray for subsequent integration with sheets from the primary tray as coded information is printed. In an alternative method, the sheets of paper having non-coded information copied thereon are collected in the duplex tray with each sheet then being cycled through the system without copying or printing thereon so as to be inverted upon return to the duplex tray in preparation for printing of coded information. In a further alternative method, sheets of paper onto which the non-coded information has been copied are removed from the exit tray and thereafter selected from the secondary tray to make a complete set of copies which is thereafter used as originals to make further sets of copies.

Merging of information in a copier-printer system

Electrical components in an elongated array are suspended within the interior of a sleeve type closed loop member such as a rotatable photoconductor drum or closed loop belt of a compact copier. Preferably some of the components are mounted on a board and held within the sleeve by edge slots or the like in sleeve mounting end caps, attached to the machine frame. A drive motor can be attached as part of the array and further can be arranged to drive a fan blade so that cooling air is forced through the sleeve and over the components so that the sleeve acts as a plenum. Power can be coupled from the drive motor through the end mounts to motivate the sleeve in the direction of its closed loop and/or apply power to other components of the copier.

Component mounting apparatus useful for compact copiers

A method and apparatus is disclosed for generating duplex copies from simplex originals. A plurality of originals are sequentially fed through the copying area of an electrophotographic copying machine during a first pass with a predetermined number of copies being electrophotographically made only with respect to each original appearing at an even number in the sequence as fed to the copying area and with the copies being made on one side of separate sheets of copy paper withdrawn from a storage receptacle. After collection of the sheets of copy paper from the copying area, these sheets are replaced in the storage receptacle and the plurality of originals again sequentially fed through the copying area of the copying machine during a second pass. During this second pass through the copying area, a predetermined number of electrophotographic copies equal to the number made during the first pass are made with respect to each original appearing at an odd number in the sequence as fed to the copying area with the copies being made on the side of the sheets opposite to that used during first pass copying, these sheets having been previously replaced in the storage receptacle and withdrawn therefrom for a second time during copying. Through proper orientation of the sheets replaced in the storage receptacle, duplex copies are therefore made from adjacent originals in the sequence of originals as fed to the copying area during each pass.

Method and apparatus for generating duplex copies

The invention concerns a method and apparatus for operating a copier/collator installation. By disabling the copier portion insofar as copy production is involved, the copier/collator installation can be used as an offline collator. This extended function allows the execution of copy and collate jobs which exceed the capacity of the collator.

Copier/collator with extended collate functions

Apparatus and method for pinning the value of a white, gray or otherwise colored, single-shaded vector in an electrophotographic machine. The vector is the value of the image voltage minus the developer voltage. Valuation of changes in the image voltage are obtained by (1) sensing the reflectivity of a developed single-shaded image and converting that into a representative voltage; (2) sensing the reflectivity of the bare photoconductor and converting that into a representative voltage; (3) obtaining a comparison of the representative image and reference voltages; and (4) noting changes in the comparison. Pinning the vector calls for adjusting the member for producing the vector such as the developer voltage or document illumination intensity level an amount necessary to compensate for the change in image voltage.

Vector pinning in an electrophotographic machine

A carrier bead is disclosed having a core and at least an outer coating of polytetrafluoroethylene or fluorinated ethylene propylene. Use of these fluoropolymers as carrier coatings results in extremely long carrier life and overcomes problems that have heretofore plagued the commercialization of a magnetic brush development system for a plain paper electrostatic copying apparatus.

Fluorinated polymer coated carrier particles

The invention relates to a small collator/sorter adaptable for use with a document producing machine such as a copier and having particular utility as the only output receptacle. The collator/sorter is a multi-pocket device with a limited number of bins, each of which has a limited copy capacity and is well suited to be constructed and arranged as an integral part of a copier serving as a replacement for the conventional exit tray. The paper bins are preferably contained within a small space such that they can be unloaded in a one hand operation.

Mini-collator/sorter

The invention concerns a method of controlling a multi-bin sheet collator. Adjacent collator bins are treated as one virtual bin and sheet feeding is controlled appropriately by skipping bins if the number of sets to be collated equals or is smaller than half the number of bins. Thus, multi-page documents having a number of pages exceeding the capacity of a single bin can be collated. In a combined copier/collator the number of copies selected by the operator determines the number of sets, and thus the size and grouping of the virtual bins.

Virtual bin collator control

A half-lens/mirror type copier having object-plane to image-plane reduction. The copier's scanning mechanism includes first and second moving mirrors. The first mirror line-scans a stationary original document to be copied. The second mirror receives the document's image, which is reflected from the first mirror, and directs this image to a half-lens/mirror. The half-lens/mirror's optical axis is located off-axis of the image received from the second mirror, and directs this image onto a stationary mirror. The stationary mirror directs the image onto the copier's moving photoconductor. The scanning mechanism can be parked at an end-of-scan position, and the original document is then moved past the stationary scanning mechanism, to thereby direct the document's image onto the copier's moving photoconductor. In order to achieve reduction, in either the scanning mode or the parked mode, the copier is initialized by moving second mirror and the half-lens/mirror a disclosed distance.

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Lyons, CO, United States of America

Carl A Queener