International Business Machines Corporation

Raymond L Fowler

Timothy L Schneider

Lowell T Sloan

David W Leach

The method and apparatus shown herein provide for restarting a facsimile operation after a mid-page interrupt without overlapping or splitting the image. Furthermore, this is accomplished in a facsimile system that does not have a one-to-one synchronous relationship between synchronized mechanisms in the system. In operation, a print carriage is synchronized to a false once-around signal related to the motion of a print drum. There is a predetermined cyclic relationship between the false once-around and the real once-around for the drum. If a mid-page interrupt occurs, the line position at the time of interrupt is remembered, and the particular relationship existing between the false once-around and the real once-around at the time of interrupt is remembered. The carriage is backed up to a point prior to the mid-page interrupt and rests until restart. Upon restart, the carriage is accelerated up to speed and resynchronized to the false once-around before it reaches the point of interrupt. The once-around to which the carriage is resynchronized has the same relationship to the real once-around as stored at the time of interrupt. When the carriage reaches the interrupt point, that position is detected, and the facsimile system resumes printing on the next line without splitting or overlapping the image.

Facsimile mid-page restart

A clamp for holding a flexible sheet on a rotary carrier tightens the grip on, and pulls, the sheet upon rotation of the carrier, as a result of centrifugal forces generated on two weights attached to two cooperating arms within the clamp. The magnitude of the grip-tightening force is dependent upon the mass of a grip-tightening weight attached to the clamp. The magnitude of the sheet-pulling force is dependent upon the mass of a sheet-pulling weight attached to the clamp. The clamp faces are mounted for concurrent movement along the periphery of the carrier to prevent tearing or other damage to the sheet when it is pulled as the carrier is rotated.

Centrifugal clamp on a high speed print drum

The start of each cycle of a pump, which supplies a pressurized ink stream through a nozzle for application to a recording surface on a rotary drum, is synchronized with each revolution of the drum. If more than one cycle of the pump occurs during each revolution of the drum, the number of the cycles in each drum revolution must be an integer with each cycle starting an equal angle of the revolution of the drum from the start of the prior cycle.

Growing community of inventors

Boulder, CO, United States of America

Raymond L Fowler