Lexmark International, Inc.

Phillip Byron Wright

Gary Scott Overall

Benjamin Keith Newman

Earl Dawson Ward, Ii

Steven Alan Curry

Cyrus Bradford Clarke

David Brian Langer

Kevin Dean Schoedinger

Gregory Lawrence Ream

Christopher Dane Jones

Thomas Campbell Wade

Raymond Jay Barry

James Francis Webb

John Parker Richey

Martin Victor DiGirolamo

Scott Stephen Williams

Todd Alan Dutton

Dale Randal Danner

Harald Portig

David Lee Merrifield

Douglas Campbell Hamilton

Kerry Leland Embry

James J Molloy

Craig Palmer Bush

Steven L Applegate

Ronald Todd Sellers

Steven Wayne Parish

Timothy P Craig

Richard Andrew Seman, Jr

Matthew Lowell McKay

Thomas Wilbur Blanck

Patricia Ann Valenti

Thomas Gregrory Survant

Jeffrey Thomas Hines

Nathan Karl Klemperer

Gregrory Lawrence Ream

Charles Michael Garr

An encoded device for a toner cartridge provides a plate having preprogrammed indicia positioned at locations defined in relation to a clock face. The preprogrammed indicia includes a start indicia positioned at about a 6:00 o'clock position and at least one measurement indicia located between about 200 degrees and about 230 degrees from the 6:00 o'clock position.

Encoded device having positioned indicia for use with a toner cartridge

An encoded wheel for a toner cartridge including a plate having preprogrammed indicia positioned at locations defined in relation to a clock face, the preprogrammed indicia including a start indicia positioned between about a 5:00 o'clock position and a 6:00 o'clock position, a stop indicia positioned at about a 9:00 o'clock position, at least one preselected cartridge characteristic indicia positioned between the start indicia and the stop indicia, and at least one measurement indicia located between about 200 degrees and about 230 degrees from said 6:00 o'clock position.

Encoded wheel for a toner cartridge

Method and apparatus for controlling a sheet feeder assembly for an imaging apparatus, the sheet feeder assembly including a motor coupled to a gear train for applying a rotational force to a sheet picker roller, a media supply tray for holding a media stack having a plurality of media sheets, and a buckler for buckling a top sheet of print media to separate the top sheet from the media stack, the method including the steps of driving the sheet picker roller at a initial velocity until a backlash of the gear train is eliminated and/or the top sheet has been buckled; and thereafter, accelerating the sheet picker roller from the initial velocity to a target velocity using selectable sheet picker roller velocity profiles.

Method and apparatus for controlling an auto compensation pick mechanism to reduce the occurence of multi-feeds

One aspect of the invention is directed to a toner cartridge including a sump for carrying a supply of toner. An agitator is rotatably mounted in the sump, and the agitator has a first end and a second end. An encoded wheel is coupled to the first end of the agitator. The encoded wheel is structured and adapted to include a first preselected cartridge characteristic indicia having a first extent, a stop indicia having a second extent larger than the first extent and a start indicia having a third extent larger than the second extent. Each indicia may be in the form of a slot. Preferably, the start indicia is positioned between about a 5:00 o'clock position and a 6:00 o'clock position. The stop indicia is positioned at about a 9:00 o'clock position. At least one preselected cartridge characteristic indicia is positioned between the start indicia and the stop indicia. At least one measurement indicia is located between about 200 degrees and about 230 degrees in a clockwise direction from the 6:00 o'clock position.

Toner cartridge having encoded wheel

Each sheet is picked from a stack of sheets with the time of it being picked being determined in accordance with the time of the prior pick. The sum of the times to advance a sheet its length and a desired gap between adjacent sheets is equal to a pick delay time and an expected feed time. If the measured feed time of the prior sheet exceeds a maximum feed time, the pick delay is the same as for the prior sheet. If the measured feed time of the prior sheet does not exceed the maximum feed time and the measured feed time of the prior sheet was less than the expected feed time, the pick delay is greater than the pick delay of the prior sheet. If the measured feed time of the prior sheet does not exceed the maximum feed time and the measured feed time of the prior sheet was not less than the expected feed time, the pick delay is less than the pick delay for the prior sheet.

Method and apparatus for feeding sheets

An improved printer is provided which includes a print engine control program that minimizes the power consumption of the paper-handling devices to allow for a smaller DC power supply. Some of the paper-handling devices are input paper trays, output paper stackers, and a duplexer, which all preferably contain a microcontroller and an individual electric motor drive. The base printer also contains a microcontroller in the print engine that controls the printer's mechanisms and various subassemblies that are used in the laser electrophotographic printing process. To maintain control of the entire paper path, the print engine sends commands to the paper-handling devices, and these devices send responses to these commands. Most of the printer's paper-handling devices receive their electrical power entirely from the base printer, which is supplied as a DC voltage. The print engine avoids the concurrent running of subsystems in cases where the functionality of the printer is not compromised. These subsystems are instead run sequentially, so their power demands do not overlap, thereby providing a reduced overall power consumption requirement that is being supplied by the printer's DC power supply. Another aspect of the present invention allows the printer to command either all or only certain individual paper-handling devices to place themselves into a 'power saver' mode.

Method and apparatus for managing the power consumption of a printer

Method is disclosed for determining characteristics of a toner cartridge. One aspect is directed to determining the characteristics associated with a quantity of toner in the cartridge, and thus, the method includes the steps directed to determining a home position of an encoded device relative to a code reader, determining a delay in rotational movement of the encoded device with respect to a rotational movement of a drive mechanism as an agitator moves through the toner, and translating the delay into an amount of toner remaining in the cartridge. Another aspect is directed to determining preselected cartridge characteristics from the encoded device, and thus, the method includes steps directed to rotating the encoded device, reading a coding of the encoded device, and decoding the coding to determine the preselected cartridge characteristic information represented by the coding. The method steps directed to these aspects of the method may be performed separately or in aggregate.

Method for determining characteristics of an electrophotographic

A cartridge for an electrophotographic machine having a sump for carrying an agitator rotatably mounted in the sump for engagement with a toner; an encoded device coupled to a first end of the agitator; and a torque sensitive coupling connected to a second end of the agitator which is connectable to a drive mechanism of the machine. The encoded device includes coding representing cartridge characteristic information.

Imaging apparatus cartridge including an encoded device

An improved electrophotographic (EP) printer is provided having a detachable process cartridge that contains a non-volatile memory device, which is an EPROM that cannot be erased after a bit is burned. A 'toner wheel' mounted to the exterior of the toner reservoir of the process cartridge provides, in conjunction with an optoelectronic sensor, an electrical signal that the printer receives and uses to determine toner usage. A toner 'gas-gauge' is created which uses 'bucket levels' as discrete steps to indicate how much of the measured physical toner material actually remains within the toner reservoir. After a given amount of toner material has been dispensed through the developer unit, one of the bits of the EPROM memory device is irreversibly burned, thereby providing a permanent record on the process cartridge of a certain amount of toner usage. As with a normal automobile gas gauge, the toner gas-gauge reading should never increase unless the amount of toner material inside the toner reservoir has increased. Once the bucket level transitions begin to occur for the toner gas-gauge, the printer becomes aware that a majority of the toner material has been expended from inside the toner reservoir. If the number of bucket gradation levels then increases by more than the hysteresis amount, then the printer will 'lock out' the operation of a non-reusable process cartridge. When the lock-out mode occurs, a particular bit is burned on the EPROM mounted to the cleaner housing of the process cartridge. This ensures that this particular process cartridge cannot be removed, then simply placed back into the same (or a different) printer, and then begin supplying toner to a printer. Certain important 'machine data' also can be stored in the EPROM memory device on the process cartridge of the present invention. The present invention is also able to declare the 'end-of-life' of a process cartridge when the gas-gauge toner sensor is not functional (such as when it has been tampered with).

Method and apparatus for storing data in a non-volatile memory circuit

Toner is conserved in printer (1) under operator control by changing the final modulation for each bit in a bit map depending on whether the bit is an edge bit or an internal bit in the character being printed. Since only the final modulation is affected, processing speed and efficiency are not degraded. The operator can select various degrees of internal gray and internal white. Some levels of gray may be satisfactory for some final correspondence.

Toner conservation by PEL modulation with operator control

A method of determining an output level of an output stack of print media in an image forming apparatus. The print media is transported, one print medium at a time, to the output stack. A sensor positioned in association with the output stack senses when the output level of the output stack has reached a near full level. At least one physical characteristic of the print media is identified which can affect the stacking of the print media. The number of the print media transported to the output stack is counted after the near full level is sensed. A determination that the output level of the output stack has reached a full level is made, dependent upon each of the at least one physical characteristic and the counted number of the print media.

Method and system of sensing an output level of an output stack of print

A facsimile printer (1) in which sets of one or two pels contiguous to longer lines of such pels are reduced or eliminated. When reduced the smaller pels are positioned continuous to the longer line and are extended one pel on each side where the longer line exists. This reduces scanner errors and significantly improves images. Gray effects from dithering are not significantly effected when the pels are reduced and spread. When the image is graphic or otherwise more random than text scanned in the line and column direction, the correction may be deactivated.

Image improvement after facsimile reception

A laser printer is provided having an automatic printhead identification system for use in a family of laser printers that are compatible with more than one model of printhead. For example, a single laser printer model can be made so that two different printheads can be successfully used, so long as the printer system knows which laser printhead has actually been installed. To detect which printhead has been installed, the printer operating system provides a reference clock signal having a pre-determined frequency, which dictates the rotational speed of the motor. Once the motor has achieved a 'lock' operational speed, the printer measures the scan rate of the faceted mirror by detecting the time interval between pulses of the 'HSYNC' signal. The HSYNC signal is sent to a 'divide-by-n counter' circuit which divides the pulse frequency of the HSYNC signal, thereby increasing the time interval (by a factor of 'n') that must be sensed by the system to determine which printhead is in fact installed. So long as the HSYNC 'lock' frequency is different between the various models of printheads that are compatible with a particular model laser printer, the principles of the invention can be used without adding any extra hardware sensors, signals, or memory addresses and detecting codes.

Method and apparatus for automatically determining the style printhead

A method of printing an image on a substrate, where a solid border is printed on the substrate, the solid border corresponding to the perimeter of the image. A dead zone, in which no media is applied, is defined adjacent to and interior of the solid border, and a gray pattern is printed adjacent to and interior of the dead zone. A printer according to the present invention is for printing an image on a substrate, and has a data processing means and printer elements. The data processing means has a solid border controller for adjusting the width of a solid border corresponding to the perimeter of the image, and for producing a solid border parameter. Also included in the data processing means is a dead zone controller for adjusting the width of a dead zone adjacent to and interior of the solid border, and for producing a dead zone parameter. The data processing means also includes a gray pattern controller for adjusting the shape and density of a gray pattern printed adjacent to and interior of the dead zone, and for producing a gray pattern parameter. The printer elements are responsive to the data processing means, and receive the solid border parameter, the dead zone parameter, and the gray pattern parameter. The image on the substrate is printed by the printer elements in response to the solid border parameter, the dead zone parameter, and the gray pattern parameter.

Method for conserving print media

A method of reducing EMI when printing an image with a printer having a laser includes determining edge pels located near an edge of the image, determining interior pels located within the image and not edge pels, forming edge pels by operating the laser at a first duty cycle and forming at least a portion of a plurality of interior pels by operating the laser at a second duty cycle longer than the first duty cycle. Another aspect is a method of reducing EMI in a printer when forming a latent image on a photoconductive member by gating a light source ON and OFF, including the steps of identifying a first region near an edge of an image to be formed, the first region being formed by gating the light source at a first frequency; and identifying an interior region of the image to be formed, the interior region being formed by gating the light source at a second frequency lower than the first frequency.

Growing community of inventors

Lexington, KY, United States of America

Phillip Byron Wright