Hewlett-packard Company

Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.p.

L'oreal

Robert Paul Callaway

Douglas Harriman

Steve Orrin Rasmussen

Steven B Elgee

Jason M Quintana

Kieran B Kelly

Matt G Driggers

Jeffrey T Hendricks

Huston W Rice

Iranpour Khormaei

Jon Johnson

William Richard Huseby

George Barbehenn

Robert D Davis

Chris A Rasmussen

Systems and methods for measuring and indicating brush head life are disclosed. In one embodiment, the system includes a brush head that moves with respect to a brush handle; an energy harvester that generates electrical signals based on movements of the brush head; a controller in electrical communication with the energy harvester; and an indicator in electrical communication with the controller. The indicator is energized based on a signal from the controller.

Systems and methods for measuring and indicating brush head life

A method for monitoring subsystem power includes, with a power control system of an electronic device, receiving energy usage data from one of a plurality of subsystems within the electronic device, with the power control system, maintaining energy usage data for the plurality of subsystems within the electronic device, and with the power control system, providing integrated energy usage data to one of the plurality of subsystems.

Monitoring subsystem power

A method of controlling a DC motor is presented. In a tracking action, an input to the motor is tracked. In a comparing action, the input is compared against a baseline value. In an adjusting action, a usage of the motor is adjusted when the input passes a threshold related to a motor performance parameter. A method of estimating a parameter of an ink carriage moved by a DC motor is also presented. In a tracking step, an input to the motor is tracked. In a comparing action, the input is compared against a baseline value to predict a level of the parameter.

DC motor control

A method and apparatus for maintaining a substantially constant belt tension under changing temperature conditions is provided by a geometric layout of a motor, belt and pulley system and a selection of manufacturing materials for component parts having a predetermined relationship of thermal expansion coefficients between themselves.

Thermal compensation belt drive tensioner

A print carriage drive assembly for an ink jet printer. The print carriage drive assembly includes a tensioned drive belt, and a compliant belt connect that applies a driving force to a print carriage at location that is displaced from the drive belt. The tensioned drive belt and the belt connect further isolate the print carriage from drive force variations.

Ink jet print carriage drive system that applies drive force at location displaced from drive belt

A shifted element printing/scanning routine coordinated with media advance through an interaction zone of hardcopy device is provided for inkjet printing mechanisms, scanners or multi-function hardcopy devices. A method is provided of coordinating operation of a reciprocating head with media advance. The head has plural interaction elements, which may be ink-ejecting nozzles in a printing mechanism, or image receptors in a scanning mechanism, with the interaction elements being arranged in a linear array to selectively interact with media. A hardcopy device has a rotating media advancing member, a reciprocating head carrying the interaction elements, an encoder having indicia to track media advance, and a sensor that interprets the encoder indicia and generated a media position signal. A controller adjusts the media advance and shifts operation of selected interaction elements to other interaction elements along the linear array to avoid an indeterminate region of the position signal where the media position cannot be ascertained.

Shifted element scanning/printing routine coordinated with media advance

Disclosed herein is a motion monitoring system for monitoring movement of a brush-type DC motor. The system includes an electrical comparator having first and second differential inputs. A current detector is connected to provide a drive current signal to the first differential input of the comparator. A low-pass filter is connected to provide an averaged drive current signal to the second differential input of the comparator. When a drive current is applied to the motor, the comparator produces a stream of binary logic-level pulses corresponding to motor movement. The pulses can be used to determine motor position and velocity.

Inexpensive motion control using DC motors

A closed-loop method and apparatus for controlling acceleration and velocity of a stepper motor in which a motor shaft encoder is used to generate a signal proportional to shaft position. This signal is subtracted from the motor input signal to produce an error signal which is compared with a reference value. When the error is equal to the reference value the motor is stepped again. Between each step, the reference value is decreased if motor velocity is too high or increased if the motor velocity is too low.

Closed-loop method and apparatus for controlling acceleration and

Method and apparatus are provided for moving perforated continuous paper (10) through a dual axis printer (12), with both axes (14, 30) driven, while regulating the feed with the perforations and maintaining a controlled tension (38a) in the paper between the two driven axes. The novel approach in this invention is the addition of a set of spring-loaded friction surfaces (56a-62a), incorporated into a gear transmission (50), which limit the amount of torque which can be transmitted to the unregulated drive axis, with the direct effect of controlling the tension in the paper between the two axes. In order to create this tension, the unregulated axis is driven at a slightly greater speed than the regulated axis (with speed measured in terms of inches of paper per revolution of the driven gear (20)). In normal operation, the slack in the paper is taken up, to the point at which the tension is at the correct level, and then enough slip occurs at the friction surfaces to drive the same amount of paper at both the regulated drive (16) and unregulated drive (32). The unregulated drive is only overdriven slightly (e.g., about 0.2%) to allow accurate feeding of single sheets (which are not driven by the regulated drive). This slight overdrive requires only minimal slip at the friction surfaces when driving continuous paper and thus keeps the amount of wear small.

Growing community of inventors

Vancouver, WA, United States of America

Robert Paul Callaway