Sheet cooling system for a printing device
AssigneeXerox Corporation
InventorsJason M. LeFevre, Douglas K. Herrmann, Seemit Praharaj, Chu-heng Liu, Jorge A. Alvarez
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A multi-sheet cooling buffer suitable for use in a printing device and a method of sheet processing with the cooling buffer are described. The cooling buffer includes an inlet and an outlet and a sheet cooling mechanism. An array of cooling stations, intermediate the inlet and the outlet, are each configured to receive print media sheets independently from the inlet and direct cooled sheets towards the outlet. In the cooling buffer, multiple print media sheets are able to be cooled contemporaneously in respective ones of the cooling stations.
Claims20
A multi-sheet cooling buffer comprising:
- an inlet and an outlet;
- a sheet cooling mechanism;
- and
- an array of cooling stations, intermediate the inlet and the outlet, which are configured to receive print media sheets independently from the inlet and direct cooled sheets towards the outlet, whereby multiple print media sheets are cooled contemporaneously in the multi-sheet cooling buffer.
A sheet processing method comprising:
- receiving a sequence of print media sheets through a common inlet;
- directing the sheets in a sequence to respective ones of an array of cooling stations until each of the cooling stations holds a respective one of the sheets;
- cooling the sheets in the cooling stations;
- and
- releasing the sheets from the cooling stations in the same sequence to a common outlet.
A printing device comprising:
- a print media source;
- an output device;
- a print media pathway connecting the print media source and the output device;
- a marking device in the print media pathway, intermediate the print media source and the output device, which forms images on the print media with a marking material;
- a dryer in the print media pathway, downstream of the marking device, which dries the images and increases a temperature of the sheets;
- and
- a multi-sheet cooling buffer, downstream of the dryer, which cools the heated sheets, the multi-sheet cooling buffer comprising:
- an array of cooling stations which are each configured to receive heated print media sheets, each of the cooling stations including a continuous belt, a sheet receiving surface of each of the belts being arranged in parallel, whereby multiple print media sheets are cooled contemporaneously in the multi-sheet cooling buffer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.