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US 4,903,050 AGranted
Toner recovery for DEP cleaning process
AssigneeXerox Corporation
InventorFred W. Schmidlin
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Direct electrostatic printing (DEP) is enhanced by the provision of a shutter mechanism for preventing toner dislodged from the backside of a printhead structure from being deposited on copy substrates. The shutter is interposed between the printhead structure and the copy substrate during a cleaning cycle. The dislodged toner is removed from between the printhead structure and the copy substrate with a combination vacuum and toner collection device.
Claims12
Direct electrostatic printing apparatus, said apparatus comprising:
- a supply of charged toner particles;
- an apertured printhead structure through which toner particles pass in image configuration;
- an image receiving member disposed adjacent one side of said apertured printhead;
- means for supporting said image receiving member past said apertured printhead;
- means for effecting the attraction of toner particles from said apertured printhead structure to said image receiving member;
- means for periodically causing toner particles from said supply to bombard the side of said printhead structure disposed between said image receiving member and said printhead structure whereby momentum transfer between said toner particles caused to bombard said side and toner particles which have accumulated on said side causes said accumulated toner to become dislodged;
- and
- means for preventing dislodged toner from being deposited on said image receiving member.
5 more elements
The method of printing images, said method including the steps of:
- supplying toner particles to an apertured printhead structure;
- supporting an image receiving member to one side of said apertured printhead structure;
- attracting toner particles from said apertured printhead structure to said image receiving member;
- periodically causing toner particles from said supply to bombard the side of said printhead structure disposed between said image receiving member and said printhead structure whereby momemtum transfer between said toner particles caused to bombard said side and toner particles which have accumulated on said side causes said accumulated toner to become dislodged;
- and
- preventing dislodged toner from being deposited on said image receiving member.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.