Postage meter system having a controlled level of ink

Abstract

A method of disabling operation of a disposable print module that has an ink reservoir and a plurality of ink ejection nozzles including unused nozzles, and that serves to be mounted on a base of a postage meter, the method including the following steps: forming, in a prior step, a residual ink level counter using a determined first group of the unused nozzles; determining the volume of ink consumed; destroying one of the unused nozzles of the residual ink level counter every time the print module is mounted on a different postage meter base; destroying one of the unused nozzles of ink consumed exceeds a predetermined ink level; and disabling operation of the print module when all of the unused nozzles of the residual ink level counter have been destroyed.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.