Method for determining the connection status of a toner refill device
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsJin Woo Noh, Young Kang Kong, Su Yong Lee
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Abstract
An example image forming apparatus includes a printing engine to perform a printing work by using toner filled in a toner cartridge, a communication device to communicate with a circuit board attached to a toner refill apparatus that refills toner in the toner cartridge by using a plurality of terminals, and a processor to identify a connection state of the toner refill apparatus based on a voltage value of at least one of the plurality of terminals.
Claims17
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a printing engine to perform a printing work by using toner in a toner cartridge;
- a communication device to communicate with a circuit board attached to a toner refill apparatus that is to refill toner in the toner cartridge by using a plurality of terminals, the plurality of terminals of the communication device including a first ground terminal, a first data terminal, and a first state terminal, and;
- and
- a processor to identify a connection state of the toner refill apparatus based on a voltage value of at least one of the plurality of terminals,
- wherein the toner refill apparatus comprises a fourth ground terminal, a fourth data terminal, a fourth state terminal, a first resistance disposed between the fourth ground terminal and the fourth state terminal, a second resistance of which one end is commonly connected to one end of the first resistance and the fourth ground terminal, and a fuse of which one end is connected to the other end of the second resistance, and of which another end is connected to the fourth state terminal.
A toner refill apparatus comprising:
- a toner outlet to couple to an external pass-through opening of an image forming apparatus to supply toner to a toner cartridge of the image forming apparatus;
- a bottle to contain toner;
- a circuit board disposed on the bottle, to store apparatus information and use history information of the toner refill apparatus;
- a plurality of terminals to communicate with a communication device of an image forming apparatus;
- and
- a circuit member to vary, based on infiltration of toner contained in the bottle being completed, a resistance value between a first terminal and a second terminal among the plurality of terminals.
A circuit structure of a toner refill device, the circuit structure comprising:
- a memory to store data;
- a data terminal coupled to the memory;
- a ground terminal;
- and
- a state terminal,
- wherein the memory is located on a first surface of a toner outlet of the toner refill device, the toner outlet to couple to a toner cartridge of an image forming apparatus, and
- wherein the data terminal, the ground terminal, and the state terminal are located on a second surface of the toner outlet that is opposite to the first surface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.