Xerox Corporation

W Keith Gilliland

Roger G Teumer

Eric Alan Merz

Christian G Midgley

Stephen F Pond

Roger Guy Markham

Frederick Allen Donahue

William R Burger

Lawrence M Hart

Charles Nesta

Paul S DeHond

Francis W Dana

Mark C Mutch

Alison M Murphy

Wayne T Bowerman

An apparatus for producing pieces of mail includes mail handling assemblies; and a printing module connected to the mail handling assemblies and having a first printing position, a second printing position, a moveable carriage for moving to and from the first printing position and the second printing position, and a first printhead cartridge mounted at a first location on the moveable carriage and including a first printhead having a first path of movement with the moveable carriage at and through the first printing position and the second printing position. The printing module also includes a second printhead cartridge mounted at a second location on the moveable carriage for increasing a width of a swath printed by the first printhead cartridge and the second printhead cartridge. The second printhead cartridge includes a second printhead having a second path of movement with the moveable carriage at and through the first printing position and the second printing position. The apparatus for producing mail pieces further includes a first registration member located at the first printing position for maintaining a first gap between pieces of mail to be printed on by the first printhead and the second printhead, and a second registration member located at the second printing position for maintaining a second gap between itself and the first printhead and the second printhead.

Mail piece producing machine having a wide swath envelope printing module

A media transport system for transporting a media sheet in a marking device includes an entrance drive assembly, an exit drive assembly and a vacuum generator that applies a vacuum force to the media sheet to form a wide, flat printing zone. The entrance drive assembly receives and transports the media sheet in a process direction by contacting top and bottom surfaces of the media sheet, thereby exerting an entrance drive force on the media sheet. The exit drive assembly receives and transports the media sheet by contacting the top and bottom surfaces of the media sheet, thereby exerting an exit drive force on the media sheet. The vacuum force is applied to the media sheet in an area of the media sheet between the entrance drive assembly and the exit drive assembly. The vacuum force on the media sheet acts in a vacuum force direction substantially normal to the process direction. The vacuum force is set such that the entrance drive force and the exit drive force in the process direction each exceed the vacuum force acting in the vacuum force direction.

Media transport assembly incorporating vacuum grooves to flatten sheet

A sheet transport system has an encoder roller in direct contact with the sheet media and driven by the sheet media to detect and compensate for any registration error particularly at lead and trail edges during transport of the sheet media as media enters and exits transport nips. The invention is well suited for use in controlling and monitoring paper movement in incremental advance and print systems, such as ink jet printers. A biasing member ensures that the sheet media and encoder roller are in intimate contact. Preferably, a material with a high coefficient of friction is provided on an outer periphery of the encoder roller to assist in mating of the roller with the sheet media.

Paper driven rotary encoder that compensates for nip-to-nip handoff error

An improved system for more accurately estimating consumption of toner imaging material in a digital xerographic printer in relation to a count of the digital pixels generating the various images being printed, where the frequency rates of the switching between print and non-print pixels are analyzed to provide weighting factors corresponding to different types of images being printed which affect the consumption of imaging material by the printer, and the pixel counts are weighted by these weighting factors to provide an imaging material consumption calculation based on image types as well as image pixel counts. The pixel count weighting factor is automatically substantially increased for the higher print/nonprint rates, or pixel on/off frequencies, and higher toner consumption by fringe field development, corresponding to halftone images in comparison to solid area images. The pixel count weighting factor is intermediately increased for intermediate imaging frequencies corresponding to normal line text.

Printer toner usage indicator with image weighted calculation

A monitor/warranty system for electrostatographic reproducing machines in which replaceable cartridges providing a predetermined number of images are used, each cartridge having an EEPROM programmed with a cartridge identification number that when matched with a cartridge identification number in the machine enables machine operation, a cartridge replacement warning count, and a termination count at which the cartridge is disabled from further use, the EEPROM storing updated counts of the remaining number of images left on the cartridge after each print run.

Monitor/warranty system for electrostatographic reproducing machines

An erase device for removing residual charges from the photoreceptor of a xerographic type reproduction machine or printer preparatory to recharging, comprising, an elongated rectangular light conducting bar or fiber adapted for disposition with one side thereof in preset spaced relation to the photoreceptor surface; a light impervious cover about the remaining sides of the fiber to prevent escape of light from the interior thereof; an illumination cavity at one end of the fiber; a lamp in the cavity in operative relationship within the fiber end, the lamp and cavity cooperating so that light is discharged by the lamp into the fiber for transmittal axially within the fiber toward the fiber opposite end, portions of the light in the interior of the fiber escaping through the fiber one side to impinge upon the photoreceptor surface and discharge the photoreceptor; the fiber one side being roughened so that the light exit area progressively increases in proportion to the distance from the lamp, the roughened portion enabling the discharge of light through the fiber one side and providing a proportionally increasing light emitting surface in accommodation of the fall off in light intensity as the distance from the lamp increases. In a second embodiment, the fiber is semi-circular in cross section, the rounded portion of the fiber being covered with a cladding material to prevent the escape of light therefrom while permitting the discharge of light from the uncovered flat portion of the fiber, the fiber being positionable with the flat portion thereof in preset spaced relation to the photoreceptor surface, the surface area of the fiber flat portion being roughened to enable the discharge of light from the fiber and progressively increasing in proportion to the distance from the lamp to accommodate fall off in the intensity of the light discharged from the fiber as the distance from the lamp increases.

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Webster, NY, United States of America

W Keith Gilliland