Color printing image bearing member color registration system

Details Color printing image bearing member color registration system Color printing image bearing member color registration system

2000-09-14

2001-08-14

Pendegrass, Joan (Department: 2852)

Recorders

Writers

Receiver and marker movable

C399S301000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06275244

ABSTRACT:

Disclosed is an improvement in systems for the accurate registration of images on an image bearing member of an image reproduction system, such as a xerographic printer, especially a plural color printer, relative to other such images and/or other related components of the image reproduction system.
The registration system disclosed in the specific embodiment herein can be accomplished with little or no additional cost or complexity over existing such registration systems. It can even utilize pre-existing registration mark-on-belt (MOB) sensors and their controls, yet provide increased tolerance to, and correction of, gross initial miss-registration, without sacrificing fine registration accuracy.
By way of background, in various reproduction systems, including xerographic printing, the control and registration of the position of imageable surfaces such as photoreceptor belts, intermediate transfer belts (if utilized), and/or images thereon, is critical, and a well developed art, as shown by the exemplary patents cited below. It is well known to provide various single and/or dual axes control systems, for adjusting or correcting the lateral position and/or process position or timing of a photoreceptor belt or other image bearing member of a reproduction apparatus, such as by belt lateral steering systems and/or belt drive motor controls, and/or adjusting or correcting the lateral position and/or process position or timing of the placing of images on the belt with adjustable image generators such as laser beam scanners.
An important application of such accurate image position or registration systems is to accurately control the positions of different colors being printed on the same intermediate or final image substrate, to insure the positional accuracy (adjacency and/or overlapping) of the various colors being printed. That is not limited to xerographic printing systems. For example, precise registration control may be required over different ink jet printing heads and/or vacuum belt or other sheet transports in a plural color ink jet printer.
Of particular interest here, it is well known to provide image registration systems for the correct and accurate alignment, relative to one another, on both axes, of different plural color images on an initial imaging bearing surface member such as (but not limited to) a photoreceptor belt of a xerographic color printer. That is, to improve the registration accuracy of such plural color images relative to one another and/or to the image bearing member, so that the different color images may be correctly and precisely positioned relative to one another and/or superposed and combined for a composite or full color image, to provide for customer-acceptable color printing on a final image substrate such as a sheet of paper. The individual primary color images to be combined for a mixed or full color image are often referred to as the color separations.
As noted, known means to adjust the registration of the images on either or both axes (the lateral axis and/or the process direction axis) relative to the image bearing surface and one another include adjusting the position or timing of the images being formed on the image bearing surface. That may be done by control of ROS (raster output scanner) laser beams or other known latent or visible image forming systems.
In particular, it is known to provide such imaging registration systems by means of marks-on-belt (MOB) systems, in which edge areas of the image bearing belt laterally outside of its normal imaging area are marked with registration positional marks, detectable by an optical sensor. For belt steering and motion registration systems (previously described) such registration marks can be permanent, such as by silk screen printing or otherwise permanent marks on the belt, such as belt apertures, which may be readily optically detectable. However, for image position control relative to other images on the belt, or the belt position, especially for color printing, typically these registration marks are not permanent marks. Typically they are distinctive marks imaged with, and adjacent to, the respective image, and developed with the same toner or other developer material as is being used to develop the associated image, in positions corresponding to, but outside of, the image position. Such as putting the marks along the side of the image position or in the inter-image zone between the images for two consecutive prints. Such marks-on-belt (MOB) image position or registration indicia are thus typically repeatedly developed and erased in each rotation of the photoreceptor belt. It is normally undesirable, of course, for such registration marks to appear on the final prints (on the final image substrate).
The above and further background, including examples of specific MOB registration sensors and controls, is well known to those skilled in this art, and taught in numerous products and patents thereon (of which the following are some examples). Thus, it need not be repeated herein in detail.
For example, the following five Xerox Corp. U.S. patents are noted as specifically mentioning one or more registration systems utilizing “Z” shaped marks, patterns, or targets on a photoreceptor: U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,889,545; 5,815,481; 5,302,973; 5,300,961; and 5,278,625. The following five Xerox Corp. U.S. patents are noted as specifically mentioning one or more registration systems utilizing “chevron” photoreceptor registration marks for color printing: U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,014,154; 5,774,156; 5,537,190; 5,418,556; and (of particular interest) U.S. Pat. No. 5,287,162, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Corrections of Color Registration Errors”, issued Feb. 15, 1994 by dejong, et al., describing registration with chevrons and also bi-cell detectors or CCD detectors. The latter and other patents noted above, and other Xerox Corp. patents such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,748,221 and 5,510,877 and 5,631,686 issued May 20, 1997 to Castelli, et al, are also relevant to MOB sensors arid/or systems for image shifting into registration by ROS shifting and/or belt position shifting. Said U.S. Pat. No. 5,748,221, issued Nov. 1, 1995 to Castelli, et al, also describes chevron MOBs and bi-cells sensors. Another MOB registration system for multicolor image registration which is disclosed as specific to intermediate image bearing belts (in addition to U.S. Pat. No. 5,287,162 above) is Fuji Xerox Co. U.S. Pat. No. 6,094,551. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 4,963,899 issued Oct. 16, 1990 to Resch, also describing bi-cell sensors. U.S. Pat. No. 5,909,235 is of particular interest for noting MOB sensor registration, citation of other references here therein, and a background discussion of different applicable color printing systems. Examples of some further, earlier, patents are U.S. Pat. No. 4,903,067 to Murayama et al, especially as to CCD arrays detection of registration marks on belts, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,804,979 on MOBs.
The following exemplary U.S. patents are particularly noted for discussions of photoreceptor or intermediate belt motion sensing with permanent belt fiducial or registration (and/or belt seam location) markings, by belt holes or other apertures, and optical sensors and/or belt steering controls: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,837,636; 5,175,570; 5,204,620; 5,208,633; 5,248,027; 5,278,587 (on plural ROS beam sweep detections for single pass registered color printing) 5,383,014; and pending Xerox Corp. Ser. No. 09/450,375, filed Nov. 29, 1999 by Castelli, et al.
Canon U.S. Pat. No. 4,912,491, priority-filed May 30, 1987 and issued Mar. 27, 1990 to O. Hoshino, et al, appears to teach some form of permanent transparent areas of an intermediate image transfer belt for providing optically sensed registration marks, in a ROS raster imaged tandem (plural print engines) printer, for superposing plural xerographic color images with registration.
Of additional interest for registration of plural color images with sensed color registration marks on a belt is Xerox Corp. U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,592, issued Jan. 24, 1995 to Lam F. Wong, entitled “Method and

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