Method and apparatus for communicating between printer or laminator and supplies
AssigneeFargo Electronics, Inc.
InventorsGary M. Klinefelter, Bradley A. Paulson, Matthew K. Dunham, Kevin R. Campion, Jeffrey D. Upin, Gary A. Lenz, Aurelian Dumitru
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A printer for printing onto a substrate includes a substrate feed mechanism configured to secure the substrate during printing and a print mechanism configured to print on the substrate. A transceiver is configured to transfer power through a non-physical link to a radio frequency (RF) circuit carried on a printer supply to thereby power the RF circuit. The transceiver also responsively receives printer supply data through a non-physical link from the RF circuit.
Claims36
A printer or laminator supply comprising:
- a core;
- a ribbon wound on the core;
- a print head receiving the ribbon;
- an alterable ID tag circuit mounted to the core and including a memory containing information relating to parameters of the supply and a Radio Frequency (RF) circuit having an antenna for receiving RF signals for altering the memory;
- a printer controller connected to an RF transmitter/receiver on the printer positioned adjacent to the ID tag RF circuit;
- and
- an encoder for determining the rotational position of said core connected to said printer controller, the printer controller providing parameters relating to operation of the printer, said transmitter/receiver writing selected parameters into the memory.
A printer or laminator supply comprising:
- a core;
- a ribbon wound on the core;
- a print head receiving the ribbon;
- an alterable ID tag circuit mounted to the core and including a light sensitive circuit and a memory containing information relating to parameters of the supply;
- and
- a printer controller connected to a light signal transmitting head on the printer positioned adjacent to the light sensitive circuit.
A printer or laminator comprising:
- supply support;
- a supply including:
- a core rotatably mounted to the supply support;
- a ribbon wound on the core;
- and
- an alterable ID tag circuit mounted to the core and having a memory containing information relating to parameters of the supply;
- an encoder adjacent the supply support and including an output signal that is indicative of a rotational position of the core;
- and
- a printer controller electrically coupled to the output signal and the alterable ID tag circuit and adapted to communicate with the alterable ID tag circuit and provide supply information thereto for storage in the memory.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.