Ricoh Company, Ltd.

International Business Machines Corporation

Ricoh Production Print Solutions LLC

Robert F Jessen

Stuart James Boland

Dilan Nirushan Fernando

Christopher A Mertens

Nathan J Olsen

Robert J Telfer

Mary Gale Cochran

Silviu Nanau

Lucian Ioan Olariu

Marius Stefan

Reinhard Heinrich Hohensee

David Earl Stone

Dennis Carney

Jeffrey Alan Sikkink

James F Driftmyer

George Melnyk

Dean O Miller

Kristin Reischel

Philip K Cihiwsky

A web handling system is disclosed. The web handling system includes first dancer rollers coupled to engage and move a web of a print medium in a forward and backward direction upon stopping a printing operation and allow forward motion during the printing operation.

Curl resistant web handling system

A printing system is disclosed. The printing system includes a storage device and a print job manager that stores received print jobs in the storage device and facilitates the printing of multiple selected print jobs as a batch of print jobs. The print job manager includes a page generator to generate an index separator page including information for each of the selected print jobs with the batch of print jobs.

Mechanism for generating index separator pages

A web handling system is disclosed. The web handling system includes a roller wheel including two or more rollers configured to engage a print medium, a motor to rotate the roller wheel and a controller to transmit a signal to the motor indicating which of the two or more rollers are to engage the print medium.

Web handling roller wheel mechanism

A method is disclosed. The method includes receiving print job data at a printing system, tracking resource objects in print job data while the print job data is rasterized to generate rasterized print data and updating a count of resource objects for print job data confirmed as printed.

Mechanism for tracking printer resource objects

A computer generated method disclosed. The method includes receiving a print job, analyzing the print job data stream, determining if the print job data stream includes a command matching one or more pre-defined criteria and disabling generation of a separator page for the print job if the print job data stream includes a command matching one or more pre-defined criteria.

Mechanism for automatically disabling printer separator pages

Systems and methods are provided for improved radiant heat control within a dryer of a printing system with reflective elements. One embodiment is a dryer of a printing system. The drying includes a radiant energy source configured to apply heat to a print medium. The dryer also includes a reflective element installed between the radiant energy source and the print medium. The reflective element is configured to have varying levels of reflectance. The dryer also includes a controller configured to determine an amount of heat to supply to a region of the print medium, and to adjust an amount of reflectance of the reflective element based on the determined amount of heat.

Radiant heat control with adjustable reflective element

A printer is disclosed. The printer includes one or more sub-components each having a meter to track energy usage at the sub-component during an event and a controller to receive energy usage data accrued at one or more of the meters during the event.

Mechanism for monitoring print system energy usage

Printing systems and associated methods of generating banner pages for print jobs are disclosed. A printing system in one embodiment includes a banner page system for generating the banner pages. The banner page system includes a memory that stores content representing selectable banner messages for banner pages. The banner page system further includes a page generator that receives print jobs. For each of the print jobs, the page generator selects a banner message from the stored content per print job based on criteria defined in the printing system, and generates a banner page that includes the selected banner message. Because the banner messages are selected on a per print job basis, the banner page for each print job is customized for that print job.

Banner pages generated within a printing system

A system and method for communicating commands and data to a printer and pre- and post-processors through a link using different protocols. In the exemplary embodiment, UPI finishing instructions for a print file are specified in a MO:DCA Form Definition and processed by a print server on a host computer. Print commands are generated by the host computer and transmitted to a printer using the Intelligent Printer Data Stream (IPDS) Architecture. The processor within the printer receives and processes the UPI pre- and post-processor commands received via the IPDS communications link and generates commands on a separate communications channel according to the Universal Printer Pre- and Post-Processing Interface (UPI) for transmission to the pre- and post-processors. Status reported by the pre- and post-processors according to the UPI&#x2122; specification are received by the printer and transmitted to the host computer.

Bidirectional pre- and post- processor conduit through a bidirectional printing data stream

A method for producing a printer wherein tractor drives move a length of fan-fold, continuous-form paper upwardly from a stacked source thereof, through a print mechanism, across a paper directing assembly and then downwardly to refold onto an output stack, the method including steps for detecting misfolds of the fan-fold paper in the printer.

Producing a continuous-forms printer with a paper misfold detector

A pair of ribbon spools are independently operated by respective motors to rotate in one direction until the ribbon end and then in the opposite direction, and so forth. Spools alternately function as feed and take-up spools and motors as a drive and drag motors, respectively To eliminate excess drag motor cogging, a ribbon tension control system uses dynamic braking of the drag motor, and includes drag circuitry with rectifier bridge circuitry and a constant current sink settable for drawing predefined selectable levels of current from the windings of the drag motor. The motors are polyphase, permanent magnet, stepper motors which, when turned by the ribbon, generate alternating back emf signals in their windings. A full-wave rectifier bridge is connected to each winding of the drag motor with bridge outputs connected to a common sink which is an emitter follower circuit whose current level is set and maintained by an operational amplifier. The current level of the emitter follower circuit is set by adjusting the reference voltage of the amplifier using a resistive voltage divider network connected to a binary switch controlled by a microprocessor with a memory. The microprocessor monitors the back emf signals, periodically adjusts the rotational speed of the drive motor depending on distribution of ribbon, and adjusts the sink based on drag value tables stored in memory.

Ribbon tension control with dynamic braking and variable current sink

Tractor drives of a high speed printer move a length of continuous-form paper longitudinally up from a box of fanfold stacked paper, through a print mechanism, across paper directing means, and downward to refold onto a fanfold stack. A misfold detector is positioned at the paper directing means to sense the jumble of paper caused by misfolding prior to jamming of paper movement through the tractor drive to prevent damage to the paper, complex restarting procedures, or data loss.

Growing community of inventors

Berthoud, CO, United States of America

Robert F Jessen