Xerox Corporation

Neil J Dempsey

Joseph Herman Lang

Gerald L Coy

Stephen J Wenthe, Jr

Mark H Buddendeck

Patrick T Pendell

David K Young

Thomas E Bitter

A digital printing apparatus is controlled to provide a roughly consistent output rate, of printed sheets per minute, regardless of the size and orientation of the output print sheets. In one embodiment, the printer outputs short-edge-fed legal or A3 sheets within 25% of the rate it can output long-edge-fed letter or A4 sheets.

Digital printing apparatus having substantially equal output rates for various sheet sizes and orientations

A document forming apparatus, comprising a substrate feeder for storing and dispensing substrates to a printing engine, a controller for controlling the operation of the document forming apparatus, wherein the controller includes at least one database for storing information for the operation of the substrate feeder, and a user interface for controlling the operation of the document forming apparatus. The user interface includes a stock library view, a stock settings dialog screen having an expert feeder controls section with a manual mode operator and an auto mode operator, and a control panel screen for manual mode operation. The control panel screen includes means for adjusting a plurality of feeder parameters, indicators for manual and auto modes, and a save settings operator.

Feeder control system and method

A digital printing apparatus is capable of a plurality of selectable output speeds, by varying motor speed or pitch configuration. A user using the apparatus at a basic speed can request a temporary increase in speed of his printing apparatus from a vendor who controls aspects of the printing apparatus over a network. The temporary speed increase can be pre-scheduled, such as to occur one day per week. The user can be charged at different per-print rates depending on the selected speed.

Digital printing apparatus with remotely selectable operating speeds and features

Automated diagnosis of drive trains having electrically operated components based upon the ability of a first servo motor to rotate a second servo motor when both servo motors are selectively coupled to the drive train. Beneficially, the status of the drive train is sent to a remote location using a data link.

Method of diagnosing a drive train having multiple servo motors

In a document handling system for feeding document sheets of varying dimensions to be imaged at an imaging station through a document feeding path from a document input tray, a system for automatically determining the dimension of the document sheet being fed in its feeding direction before it is imaged, yet also providing a compact document handling system with a short document feeding path, with a sheet buckling system including a sheet buckling chamber between the document input tray and the imaging station, and feeding the trailing portion of the document sheet faster than the leading portion to substantially buckle the intermediate portion out of the document feeding path so that the distance between the trailing and leading ends of the buckled document sheet along the document feeding path is substantially reduced, and so that the trailing end of the buckled document sheet normally passes and actuates a first sheet edge sensor before the sheet reaches a second sheet edge sensor upstream of the imaging station, to provide a timing signal usable for calculating the dimension of the document sheet even for document sheets longer than the document feeding path. The calculated dimension of the document sheet may be used to automatically select a copy sheet size onto which the image of the document sheet is to be printed and/or an imaging speed reduction for increased digital resolution.

Compact document measuring system for electronic document imaging

A document handling system for sequentially feeding document sheets to be imaged with a controlled minimized interdocument gap therebetween even though the sheet separator-feeder sequentially feeds the documents from the stack in the input tray with initial interdocument gap variations to a second transport path portion feeding the document sheets through the imaging station at a constant velocity. A first servo drive feeds the documents in a first path portion including the separator-feeder, and a second servo drive feeds the documents in a second path portion providing the constant velocity. A sheet edge sensor in the first path portion signals the passage of the lead or trail edge of document sheets. A servo controller connecting with the sheet edge sensor and the first servo drive automatically measures the initial interdocument gap variations and change the feeding of document sheets in the first path portion so as to automatically changes the interdocument gap to a preset desired minimum interdocument gap in the second path portion. Preferably the second servo drive has an encoder generating signals proportional to its drive and the servo controller counts these signals between the passage of the trail edge of one document sheet and the passage of the lead edge of the next sequential document sheet past the sheet edge sensor, to calculate control signals for the first servo drive to drive it variably longer at a higher velocity than the second servo drive.

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Victor, NY, United States of America

Neil J Dempsey