Electrophotography – Diagnostics – Consumable
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-09
2001-05-01
Chen, Sophia S. (Department: 2852)
Electrophotography
Diagnostics
Consumable
Reexamination Certificate
active
06226463
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention is in the field of printing and more particular dress print quality issues associated to changing a consumable.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Electrophotographic processes for producing a permanent image on media are well known and commonly used. In general, these processes all include devices for: (1) charging a photoreceptor which is a drum or continuous belt bearing a photoconductive material; (2) producing an electrostatic latent image by exposing the charged area to a light image or a light emitting diode array, or scanning the charged area with a laser beam; (3) presenting particles of toner to the photoreceptor surface upon which the electrostatic latent image has been formed so that the particles are transferred to the electrostatic latent image; (4) transferring the particles from the photoreceptor to the media while maintaining the shape of the image formed on the photoreceptor drum; (5) fusing or fixing the particles in the shape of the image to the media; and (6) cleaning or restoring the photoreceptor for the next printing cycle.
Referring to
FIG.1
, the electrophotographic printer
300
of the prior art has therein feed rollers
321
and
322
for feeding the printing sheets stacked in the printing sheet cassettes
311
and
312
, a pair of rollers
323
for conveying a printing sheet fed from the printing sheet cassettes
311
or
312
, an exposure array
376
for emitting light to the photosensitive drum
52
for forming an electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive drum
52
, a transfer electrostatic charger
327
for transferring toner from the photoconductive drum
52
to the printing sheet, a pair of heat rollers
328
for fixing the toner transferred on the printing sheet and a prior art electrophotographic cartridge
50
.
The electrophotographic cartridge
50
has an electrostatic charger
84
for electrostatically charging the photoconductive drum
52
uniformly, a developer assembly
54
for applying toner to the electrostatic latent image formed on the photoconductive drum
52
after exposure to the exposure device
376
, and a cleaner
76
for removing the untransferred toner which remains on the photoconductive drum
52
after the transfer step. The untransferred toner is stored in waste hopper
85
. Electrostatic charger
84
may be a charge roller assembly or a corona assembly. Further information about alternative photographic processes is available in the text “The Physics and Technology of Xerographic Processes”, by Edgar M. Williams, 1984, a Wiley-Interscience Publication of John Wiley & Sons, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
Many image forming apparatus utilize the electrophotographic printing process, examples being laser printers, copy machines, and facsimile machines. As described above, these image forming apparatus use toner to print or copy the desired image or words onto a piece of paper or media. The toner is contained in a reservoir which is depleted as a result of printing. For example, the toner in a laser printer is generally depleted after printing from 2,000 to 30,000 pages depending upon the initial supply of toner in the reservoir and the coverage of the text or graphics images printed.
Monochrome Electrophotographic printers are typically designed so that the components involved in actually accomplishing electrophotographic printing are contained in a disposable electrophotographic print cartridge. The disposable toner cartridge, is conventionally identified as a “consumable” or “consumable product” because of its limited “life” (i.e., the toner will eventually deplete or some other component will eventually wear out). The components usually included in the disposable cartridge are the photoconductor drum, the drum charging assembly, such as the charge roller assembly or the corona assembly, the developer assembly, the drum cleaning blade, and the supply of toner used for forming the print text or print images. These items and other similar components are also commonly identified as consumables because they too have a limited life. The supply of toner is contained in a toner reservoir. The useable life of the cartridge is limited by the available supply of toner in the toner reservoir and the useable life of the cartridge components, particularly the photoconductor, the developer assembly, and the drum charging assembly. Upon exhaustion of the toner supply in the cartridge, it is necessary to replace the empty cartridge with one having the reservoir filled with toner.
Color Electrophotographic printers generally do not have a single toner cartridge. However, the consumables still need to be replaced as they are depleted. Some color electrophotographic printers allow the user to replace each individual color of toner independent of changing the photoconductor drum or belt.
New consumables installed in electrophotographic printing devices often must print several pages (up to 25 pages) to “condition” the consumable before use. This “conditioning” is required to allow various components to reach optimal condition for printing. Functions such as the distribution of lubrication from the cleaning blade on the photoconductor, pre-stirring of the toner, conditioning of the developer sleeve, etc. are performed during this “conditioning” time.
This approach is especially troublesome for printer users who have had a printing job interrupted due to a consumable issue, such as running out of toner. Prior to the present invention, if a printing job is interrupted due to a consumable issue, installation of the new consumable will result in the immediate continuation of the printing job. The first several pages (up to 20) may have print quality defects and thus affect the entire print job adversely. As an example, a customer may be printing an instruction manual which is several hundred pages in length. During the printing one of the consumables is exhausted stopping the printing process. The user installs a new consumable the printer begins printing again. If a “conditioning” problem exists, up to 20 pages could have print quality defects. These pages would be in the middle of the printed material and would degrade the print quality of the entire job. Most manufacturers do not provide warranty coverage of consumables from page 1, but rather specify a few pages of unwarranted printing at the beginning of consumable life.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In order to accomplish the present invention, there is provided a printing apparatus. The printing apparatus has a print engine, which uses a consumable. There is a memory connected to the print engine and a processor connected to the print engine and the memory. The processor detects a replacement of the consumable, if said replacement consumable is new, the processor instructs the print engine to condition the consumable.
There is also provided a method for controlling an imaging device. Anytime a consumable is replaced in the imaging device, the status of the consumable is determined. The consumable is conditioned if the status indicates that the consumable is new.
There is describe several methods for determining if the consumable needs conditioning.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5150135 (1992-09-01), Casey et al.
patent: 5710956 (1998-01-01), Kurohata et al.
patent: 5930553 (1999-07-01), Hirst et al.
patent: 5950038 (1999-09-01), Okui
Baumunk Mary B.
Burquist Joseph L.
Phillips Quintin T.
Baca Anthony J
Chen Sophia S.
Hewlett--Packard Company
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