Xerox Corporation

Heidi Noce

Trevor James Snyder

Edward Francis Burress

James Matthew Cunnington

Cary Eric Sjolander

Kathleen M Faraci

Keith W Ragsdale

A method of performing maintenance on a printhead of an imaging device includes the detection of at least one contaminated ink jet in a printhead. A first pressure is applied to ink in the printhead in response to the detection of the at least one contaminated ink jet. The first pressure is configured to prevent ink from entering a plurality of apertures in an aperture plate of the printhead and to prevent ink from drooling from the plurality of apertures unless the apertures are wiped by a wiper blade. A first portion of apertures in the plurality of apertures in the aperture plate is wiped with a wiper blade while leaving a second portion of the apertures untouched by the wiper blade while the first pressure is applied to the ink in the printhead. The wiping of the first portion of apertures enables ink to drool from the first portion of apertures. The first portion of apertures includes the at least one detected contaminated ink jet.

Selective purging of ink jets to limit purge mass

A method detects weak or missing ink jets in an ink jet image generating system. The method includes generating a digital image of a test pattern of line segments in a process direction on an image receiving member with each line segment corresponding to one ink jet in a printhead, generating a response profile for a portion of the image receiving member on which the test pattern was generated, measuring the response profile, comparing the measurement of the response profile to a predetermined threshold, identifying missing and weak ink jets in response to the measurement of the response profile being less than the predetermined threshold, and moving the support member transversely across the process direction to a second position that enables each light sensor to image another portion of the image receiving member.

System and method for detecting weak and missing ink jets in an ink jet printer

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Sherwood, OR, United States of America

Heidi Noce