Xerox Corporation

Richard P Germain

Grace T Brewington

Mark Anthony Cellura

James Edward Williams

Peter Johan Nystrom

Andrew Wayne Hays

Paul C Julien

Jun Ma

Scott J Phillips

Elliott A Eklund

Richard W Bigelow

Joseph A DeGroot

Kristen M Natale

Jeffrey J Folkins

William H Wayman

Donald J Drake

Robert J Gruber

Delmer G Parker

Elias Panides

Steven C Hart

Jing Zhou

Barry Daniel Reeves

Ronald J Koch

Mark James Hirsch

Nancy Beth Goodman

John Buranicz

William M Allen

Paul W Burnham

Susan J Kremer

Lotfi Belkhir

Robert M Rottman

Igor Podzorov

Norman W Czubaj, Jr

Antonio St C L Williams

Antonio St Cl Williams

Igor A Podzorov

An inkjet printer includes an electrode in either a printhead or an image receiving member that is operatively connected to a waveform generator. During operation, a controller operates the waveform generator to generate an electrostatic field between the printhead and the image receiving member during operation of inkjets in the printhead to eject ink drops. The controller operates the waveform generator to reduce an amplitude of the electrostatic field while the ink drops travel toward the image receiving member during a time when satellite ink drops can be formed from the ejected ink drops. The controller subsequently operates the waveform generator to generate the electrostatic field while the ink drops are in flight after formation of the satellite to accelerate the ink drops and satellites towards the image receiving member.

System and method for ink drop acceleration with time varying electrostatic fields

Systems and methods of ejecting ink drops from an inkjet printer are disclosed. The systems and methods can include a printhead with one or more actuators with associated nozzles and membranes. A voltage waveform can be applied to the actuators to fill the actuators with a volume of ink and eject the ink through the nozzles as ink drops. The voltage waveform can have associated pre-fill voltage to fill the actuator with ink and a firing voltage to eject the ink. The actuator membranes can have multi-height dimples to protect the membranes from contacting electrodes and reduce the electric field.

Ink jet printing systems and methods with pre-fill and dimple design

A maintenance assembly for cleaning a plurality of printheads in a printing machine comprises two or more cleaning members, each of the cleaning members sized and positioned to clean at least one but less than all of the plurality of printheads when in a cleaning position. A drive mechanism associated with each of the two or more cleaning members is configured to selectively move an associated cleaning member to and from the cleaning position and a retracted position. The cleaning members are supported on a frame with a mechanism provided for translating the frame into position juxtaposed with the plurality of printheads and a further mechanism to swipe the cleaning members across the printheads. The maintenance assembly is operable to clean only selected printheads in a single operation.

Print head maintenance system for an ink-jet printer using phase-change ink printing on a continuous web

A baffle for use in a printer to protect a printhead from particulates associated with a printing medium. The baffle including a member, incorporated within the printer, that is positioned below the printing medium and above the printhead. The member having a top surface that is angled and extends a width of the printing medium and an adhesive material disposed on the angled top surface, the adhesive material. The angled top surface being positioned to generally face toward the printing medium to trap the printing medium particulates on the adhesive material of the angled top surface.

Sticky baffle

An image forming device includes marking material dispensers for disposing an image on an imaging drum surface. The image forming device further includes plural particle removal devices comprising first and second particle removal devices coupled to a vacuum source. The first particle removal device includes a first vacuum port positioned as close as possible to an included image transfer site. The second particle removal device includes a second vacuum port positioned as close as possible to the marking material dispensers. The first and second vacuum ports are positioned proximate to the imaging drum surface to provide respective first and second air flows.

Image forming device arranged with plural particle removal devices

A printing medium baffle for protecting printheads printing on an image transfer member from particulates associated with the printing medium. The baffle may have one or more adhesive surfaces.

An apparatus for developing in a development zone a latent image recorded on a surface, including; a housing defining a chamber storing at least a supply of toner therein. A donor roll disposed of at least partially in the chamber of said housing and spaced from the surface. The donor roll is adapted to rotate about a longitudinal axis to transport toner to the development zone in a region opposed from the surface. An elongated electrode member is mounted stationarily in the development zone and extending in a direction transverse to the longitudinal axis. The electrode member includes a flexible thin sheet having a plurality of elongated wires with adjacent wires which are spaced from and substantially parallel to one another. The electrode member is positioned in the development zone and spaced between the surface and said donor roll. The electrode is electrically biased to detach toner from said donor roll, so as to form a toner powder cloud in the development zone with detached toner from the toner cloud developing the latent image.

Electrode wire grid for developer unit

An apparatus for developing a latent image recorded on a surface, the apparatus includes a housing defining a chamber storing a supply of developer material including toner; a toner donor member spaced from the surface and being adapted to transport toner to a region opposed from the surface; a magnetic brush for conveying the developer material in the chamber of the housing onto the donor member; and a rigid planar porous electrode member spaced near the surface of a donor roll, the electrode member being electrically biased to detach toner from the donor member as to form a toner cloud for developing the latent image.

Hybrid scavengeless development using a rigid porous planar electrode

A color electrophotographic printing machine in which latent images having a resolution of at least 1.44 million pixels per square inch are recorded on a photoconductive member. Different color toner powder images are developed in superimposed registration with one another to form a composite multicolor image. The composite multicolor image is transferred from the photoconductive member to a receiving member. Toner particles which have a selected pigmentation and small volume average diameters are used to minimize curl of the receiving member.

Color electrophotographic printing machine

An electrostatographic imaging process includes forming an electrostatic latent image on an image forming device, developing the electrostatic latent image on the image forming device with at least one developer containing carrier particles and a blend of two or more compatible toner compositions, and transferring the toner image to a receiving substrate and fixing it thereto. Among the compatible toner compositions that may be selected are toner compositions having blend compatibility components coated on an external surface of the toner particles and particulate toner compositions containing therein blend compatibility components or passivated pigments. Electrostatographic imaging devices, including a tri-level imaging device and a hybrid scavengeless development imaging device, are also provided for carrying out the described process. The processes and apparatus of the present invention are especially useful in imaging processes for producing single color or highlight color images using customer selectable colors, or for adding highlight color to a process color image produced by the same apparatus.

Process and apparatus for achieving customer selectable colors in an

A solid area process control for scavengeless development using a transport roll-to-donor roll DC bias as a control parameter in an electrophotographic printing machine is disclosed. The process develops a latent image of a solid area toner patch on a photoconductive belt. Once the patch is developed, the patch is measured with an infrared reflectance type sensor. The measured development mass is compared to a target value stored in the machine memory. A test of the comparison is performed by the process. If the result of the test is less than the target value, the transport roll-to-donor roll bias is increased and the process ends. If the result is more than the target value, the transport roll-to-donor roll bias is decreased and the process ends, otherwise the process stops because the measured development is acceptable. The process is run at predetermined intervals to maintain constant output from the electrophotographic printing machine.

Method for solid area process control for scavengeless development in a

Deposition of background toner particles during tri-level image transfer from an imaging member to a final substrate is minimized. A front erase step is used prior to pretransfer corona treatment in order to reduce the background voltage level to substantially the residual voltage level of the photoreceptor imaging member used in the imaging process. When the image is subjected to pretransfer corona positively charged black and color background toner particles become negative and wrong sign black toner becomes more negative. Using negative transfer corona effects transfer of toner forming the black and color images and inhibits transfer of background toner.

Tri-level background suppression scheme using an AC scorotron with front

A scavengeless/non-interactive development system using wire electrodes in a development nip between a donor member and a charge retentive surface. The wire electrodes are electrically biased for causing toner particles to form powder clouds in the development nip. Uniform powder clouds are ensured by effecting rubbing contact between the toner particles on a donor roll and a conductive surface.

Concept for prevention of scavengeless nip wire contamination with toner

An apparatus in which contaminants are on-the-fly removed from an electrode wire positioned between a donor roller and a photoconductive surface. A magnetic roller is adapted to transport developer material to the donor roller. The electrode wire is electrostatically biased with respect to the donor roller to remove contaminants therefrom. The electrostatic wire bias polarity corresponds with the contaminant charge polarity to repel the contaminants from the wire.

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Webster, NY, United States of America

Richard P Germain