Xerox Corporation

Henry Thomas Bober

Eun Suk Suh

Linn C Hoover

James J Spence

Barry Paul Mandel

Peter John Knausdorf

Chetan Keny

Adam Douglas Ledgerwood

Kenneth Paul Moore

Aaron Michael Moore

James Lawton Giacobbi

Paul J DeGruchy

Frank Albert Porter

William A Blitz

Gregory A Ludgate

James O Mitchel

Michael S Doery

Raymond P Mileski

Frank C Darling, Jr

Mark L Leveto

Xinzhong Zhang

Thomas W Fletcher

Barbara A Englant

A system and method of printing an image on corrugated material may include receiving a digital representation of an image. A print target may be printed on a first corrugated material with respect to a print location. It may be determined whether an error distance between the print target and a die cut target is less than a threshold. The print location may be automatically adjusted based on the error distance. The image may be printed on a second corrugated material based on the adjusted print location.

System and method for image registration for packaging

A print system including a vacuum blower configured to create both a vacuum pressure and exhaust, a vacuum chamber configured to distribute the vacuum pressure created by the vacuum blower, a transport belt configured to pass in close proximity to the vacuum chamber, the transport belt having a plurality of holes, and a pneumatic cleaning device configured to direct the exhaust created by the vacuum blower through one or more holes of the transport belt in close proximity to the pneumatic cleaning device. The pneumatic cleaning device includes an upper cleaning head comprising a one or more vents configured to direct air through holes in a transport belt; and a lower cleaning body. The lower cleaning body includes a muffler, a removable collection area configured to collect debris in the exhaust, and a filter configured to collect in the exhaust.

Pneumatic hole cleaner for vacuum belt

A tightly integrated parallel printer includes a reconfigurable media path module that has a baffle that accepts sheets from above at a 12 o'clock position when in a first configuration and accepts sheets from a 6 o'clock position when in a second configuration. The two configurations of the baffle are established to permit one common media entry transport to be mounted in either of two positions, each satisfying one of the desired configurations.

Reconfigurable sheet transport module

A media transport system comprising a roller system, a baffle, and at least one lead-in guide positioned to guide a sheet towards the roller system. The roller system includes a drive roller and an idler roller forming a nip, each roller being mounted on a corresponding drive shaft and an idler shaft, respectively. The lead-in guide, lying at an angle to the baffle, is coupled to at least one of the drive shaft or an idler shaft. The mounting of the lead-in guide eliminates tolerances between the lead-in guide and the nip due to baffle flatness, or baffle and shaft deflections as the lead-in guide is positioned by the drive shaft that locates the nip roller. This arrangement enables the lead-in guide to direct a leading edge of the sheet substantially close to a tangent plane of the nip and minimizes drive forces in the system.

Media transport system with shaft-mounted nip lead-in elements

An improved architecture for use in a tightly integrated serial or parallel printer includes an inverter module that comprises a straight pass-through media path, as well as, an invert path. This auxiliary 'pass-through' media path of the inverter allows a sheet to enter the inverter 'backwards' through the traditional duplex exit path and continue straight out the inverter into the media path of a downstream engine to receive an image thereon.

Pass through inverter

Separate multicolorant and monochromatic digital image marking engines are operated concurrently for print jobs having both monochromatic and color images. The marked multicolorant image sheets are batch printed and held in a sheet buffer and interspersed in sequence with the monochromatic marked sheets without interrupting the faster monochromatic marking engine or requiring multiple unnecessary run cost increasing start up and shut down cycles of the multicolorant marking engine.

Digital image printing a job including monochromatic and color images

A vacuum transport system includes vacuum plenum having a plenum plate as a part thereof and a belt with an array of holes that align to grooves in the plenum plate over which the belt is driven. A sliding plate on the underside of the plenum plate inside the vacuum plenum contains a series of holes and slots to progressively open or shut holes connecting the grooves to the vacuum plenum to maintain a constant air flow and vacuum pressure in the cross process direction for varying widths of media.

Cross process shuttering of a vacuum transport system

Disclosed is a sheet buffering and inverting device having a sheet transport path and multiple sheet inverter paths extending upward and/or downward there from. Sheets being transported through the sheet transport path are selectively diverted into the sheet inverter paths, held, and subsequently fed back into the sheet transport path such that they are inverted. Optionally, an additional sheet transport path can branch off the sheet transport path upstream of the sheet inverter paths and can connect to the distal end of each of the sheet inverter paths to allow sheets to be buffered without being inverted. This device can be incorporated into a discrete module of a modular printing system to ensure sheets are properly merged and oriented after processing by multiple printing engines. Alternatively, it can be incorporated into a standalone printing system to ensure sheets are properly buffered and/or inverted prior to processing by a single printing engine.

Combined sheet buffer and inverter

A system for maintaining depth of focus in an ink jet printer between a series of print heads and corrugated media includes a vacuum transport in combination with an acquisition cylinder positioned upstream of the series of print heads in order to help the vacuum transport acquire the corrugated media and work in conjunction with a series of star wheels distributed about and positioned immediately adjacent to each of the series of print heads to suppress cross process direction curl.

Ink jet printing depth of focus control apparatus

A method and apparatus for a modular printing system having individual units comprising input modules, transporter modules, marking engine modules, fuser modules and exit modules each with its own support structure and cabinet. The modular units have common matching interface configurations for paper feed and electrical connections so as to permit numerous combinations and variations of printing systems capable of monochrome, color, duplex, hybrid and simplex printing by modular interconnection as opposed to built-up systems.

Modular printing system

A novel media path mechanism which utilizes the position and/or motion of buffer nips to deflect the leading and trailing edges of the sheets entering the buffer to enable the sheets to be reliably shingled in the buffer media path. The sheets are stored in properly collated order until needed for insertion into the print stream. By shingling or overlapping successive sheets in close relationship in a row within the buffer, this process can greatly increase the volume of storage or parking of sheets within the buffer. This can significantly reduce the size or footprint of the buffer within the printing system or significantly increase the capacity of an existing system.

Deflecting nip sheet shingling buffer mechanism

A system and method for avoiding paper jams and possible shutdown in an image forming device by automatically executing a series of re-feed cycles for a sheet of image receiving media in a multi pass image forming device. The sheet transport section of the image forming device includes a hold section and a sensor associated with the hold section to provide input to a control unit to execute one or more re-feed cycles based on a failure to sense a sheet of image receiving media in the hold section at an appropriate time in operation of the image forming device. The control unit also controls a hold duration for the sheet of image receiving media at the hold section to synchronize a final feed of the sheet of image receiving media with the operation of the marker unit in the image forming device.

Systems and methods for modifying feed timing for image receiving media in an image forming device

An integrated printing system is provided and includes a plurality of image marking engines, at least two media feeder modules, and a first forward substantially horizontal interface media transport integrated with the plurality of image marking engines and the at least two feeder modules for selectively transporting media from the at least one media feeder module to at least one image marking engine. The system further comprises a footprint, and at least one of the feeder modules having a first and a second paper feed tray, wherein the first and the second feed trays are canted upward at an angle from horizontal thereby reducing the footprint of the system.

Paper feeder for modular printers

A vacuum transport includes a segmented, rigid or solid articulated belt combined with a vacuum plenum in each segment of the belt. Using a rigid segmented belt with a vacuum plenum connected to each segmented belt section eliminates ordinarily encountered drag friction in conventional vacuum transports by reducing the force necessary to move the belt with media thereon while simultaneously improving the motion quality of the move by driving the articulated rigid belt from the top side of the belt in a flat section.

Segmented rigid plate belt transport with a high motion quality drive mechanism

A flexible strip of low coefficient of friction material is attached to a paddle wheel hub and placed over a predetermined length of the drive side of the paddle wheel blades in order to reduce the drive force of the paddle wheel blades on the top sheet in a stack to thereby allow the accurate compiling of a greater range of curled sheets.

Growing community of inventors

Fairport, NY, United States of America

Henry Thomas Bober