Velocity compensation for bead bypass
AssigneeXerox Corporation
InventorEarl V. Jackson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method employing at least one separation roller continuously contacting the outside surface of a web and tracked to move in a fixed approximately elliptical path for compensating for web motion during separation of the web from another surface to enable a bead of accumulated material built up at the line of contact between the web and the other surface to pass therebetween without changing the web velocity. In a preferred embodiment, the system is employed in photoelectrophoretic imaging to bypass a bead of imaging suspension built up at the imaging nip during separation of two webs immediately after completion of imaging to thereby permit dissipation or passage of the liquid bead without changing the advancing web velocity.
Claims8
A method for removing excess photoelectrophoretic ink developer accumulated as a bead at a nip formed by movably contacting an ink wetted injecting web with a blocking electrode in at least tangential contact in and about an imaging zone without substantially altering the speed of advance of the injecting web, comprising the steps of:
- a. disengaging the moving injecting web from the blocking electrode within the imaging zone by moving the axis of at least one movable axially rotatable compensation roller, arranged in biased contact with an unwetted side of the injecting web, along a plane approximately parallel to the injecting web and along an arc approximating part of a fixed elliptical pathway, while simultaneously maintaining a taut condition in the injection web to permit passage of accumulated ink;
- and thereafter
- b. re-engaging the moving injecting web with the blocking electrode by moving the rotatable compensation roller in the opposite direction along a fixed elliptical pathway to the original position for imaging purposes.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.