Xerox Corporation

Vinod K Agarwal

Thomas Acquaviva

Robert P Siegel

Michael John Martin

James J Appel

Lam F Wong

John A Durbin

Gerald M Garavuso

Stephen A Bonelli

Joseph C Foerster

Barry M Dixon

Gregory G Jones

Harold W Fletcher

An apparatus for cleaning a rotatable cylindrical member such as a pressure roll of a fuser assembly includes an absorbent sheet having longitudinal sides joined at a seam and having a generally folded edge along a central longitudinal axis of the absorbent sheet. Rods disposed within the absorbent sheet support the absorbent sheet against the rotatable cylindrical member to clean the circumferential surface of the member as it rotates.

Pressure roll cleaner

A sheet handler for successively transporting sheet-like material units to and from processing stations in image processing devices such as printers, copiers, and scanners. The sheet handler includes an idler and driven cross-roller set. The rollers are preloaded so that a normal force exists between the rollers at the nip. The nip is positioned in a path for receiving the sheet like material units and to urge such units along the path and into alignment along a registration edge. Apparatus for adjusting the preloaded force are provided to thereby adjust the normal force on sheet-like material passing through the nip.

Adjustable normal force edge registering apparatus

An apparatus for transporting and tracking a belt arranged to move in a predetermined path and controlling lateral movement of the belt from the predetermined path includes a stationary non-rotating arcuate tracking shoe with a belt defining surface for supporting a belt including vertically oriented flanges at each side of said path defining surface and extending from said path defining surface outwardly to provide belt edge guides. An unconstrained slip belt is positioned between the tracking shoe and the belt. When driving the belt around the tracking shoe the velocity of the belt in the axial direction of the tracking shoe is zero when the belt touches an edge guide. Therefore, the friction force acting on the belt from the tracking shoe in the axial direction approaches zero, which helps to keep the total system force applied at the edge guide less than the minimum force necessary to produce buckling of the side of the belt. The slip belt reduces the drive torque necessary for driving the belt and eliminates wear of an anti-curl back coating on the belt.

Belt support and tracking apparatus

The invention includes a sheet feeding apparatus having a sheet pocket with a first end and a second end, rollers spaced a predetermined distance from the first end and including a plurality of sheet-feeder nips, one of the nips being an inlet nip for directing a sheet into the first end of the sheet pocket, and at least one other of the nips being an exit nip for directing a sheet out of the first end of the sheet pocket, and bypass rollers for selectively permitting a sheet to exit the sheet pocket via the second end thereof.

Multiple output sheet inverter

A document registration guide as provided by mounting a retractable pattern bearing substrate beneath a glass document platen. The substrate operates in the manner of a window shade, presenting a plurality of document outlines which are visible to an operator during a pre-copy state. The operator can select the appropriate document outline pattern, and position the document to be exposed along the outline ensuring the required and proper registration for that document. At start of scan, the substrate is retracted out of the document exposure area and is returned to its initial position at the end of the copying cycle.

Document registration utilizing retractable transparent member beneath

A apparatus in which lateral movement of a moving belt is controlled so that the belt moves in a predetermined path. The apparatus includes dual oppositely wound, helical springs having a rectangular cross-section with a high friction material extruded thereon. The springs are mounted on a shaft with an adhesive.

Low lateral force drive roller system

A tri-directional inverter for use in machines requiring copy sheet inversion for collated copy set output uses four rollers forming three sheet-feeding nips. All sheets enter the center nip and contact a diverter gate that urges them in either of two directions. The sheets are corrugated by corrugating rollers as they enter a spring loaded inversion channel. The spring and corrugation rollers urge the sheets back out of the inversion channel into engagement with either of the selected other nips formed by the four rollers for feeding back into the machine for further processing.

Four roll inverter

In an electrophotographic device of the type including a belt-type charge retentive member, driven along an endless path through a series of image processing stations by a frictionally engaging driving member, including a blade cleaning station for removing residual toner and debris from the member after transfer of a toner image to a final substrate and an arrangement for controlling the driving member to selectively drive the charge retentive member in either direction along the endless path, so that the member may be occasionally back tracked to clear debris accumulating at the blade cleaner, the back tracking movement is controlled by provision of at least first and second sensor detectable indicia on the charge retentive member, spaced therealong at an interval equivalent to the desired back tracking distance. A sensor suitable for detecting the detectable indicia on the charge retentive member is provided, to produce and direct detection signals to a machine controller controlling the back tracking operation of the device in accordance with detection of the indicia. Alternatively, successive detections of the same indicia during normal operation may be used as a measurement of average belt velocity.

Growing community of inventors

Webster, NY, United States of America

Vinod K Agarwal