US 7,746,524 B2Granted

Bi-directional inverter printing apparatus and method

AssigneeXerox Corporation

InventorsRobert M. Lofthus, Steven R. Moore, Robert A. Clark

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Abstract

According to one aspect of this disclosure, a printing apparatus and method is provided. The printing apparatus comprising a media sheet first inverter and a media sheet second inverter, the first inverter and second inverter operatively connected to provide a media sheet pass-through route, wherein the media sheet pass-through route transports a media sheet through the first inverter and the second inverter. According to another aspect of this disclosure, a printing system is disclosed. The printing system comprising an inverter module. The inverter module comprising a first media sheet input/output zone, and a second media sheet input/output zone, the first and second media sheet input/output zones operatively connected to provide a media sheet pass-through route. The inverter module is configured to selectably route a media sheet to a printing device for image transfer and the inverter module is configured to invert a media sheet from the printing device media sheet output.

Claims8

Dependent claims

A printing apparatus comprising:

an image transfer zone configured to transfer an image to a media sheet, the image transfer zone including a media sheet input and a media sheet output;
and
a media sheet inverter apparatus including
a first media sheet input,
a first media sheet output operatively connected to the image transfer zone media sheet input,
a second media sheet input operatively connected to the image transfer zone media sheet output,
a second media sheet output,
a bi-directional media sheet inverter operatively connected to the first media sheet input, the first media sheet output, the second media sheet input and the second media sheet output, wherein the bi-directional media sheet inverter is configured to invert a media sheet received at the first media sheet input, invert a media sheet received at the second media sheet input, and route a media sheet received at the first media sheet input to the second media sheet output using a pass-through route providing a redundant media sheet route bypassing the image transfer zone,
a first gate operatively connected to the bi-directional media sheet inverter and configured to route a media sheet received at the first media sheet input to the bi-directional media sheet inverter for inverting or routing to the second media sheet output, and the first gate is configured to route an inverted media sheet from the bi-directional media sheet inverter to the first media sheet output, and
a second gate operatively connected to the bi-directional media sheet inverter and configured to route a media sheet received at the second media sheet input to the bi-directional media sheet inverter for inverting and the second gate configured to route an inverted media sheet from the bi-directional media sheet inverter to the second media sheet output.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 11/317,167Filed 23 Dec 2005
Published: US 2007/0159670 A112 Jul 2007
Granted: 29 Jun 2010
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification10 codes

H04N 1/00572
Conveying sheets before or after scanning: with refeeding for double-sided scanning, e.g. using one scanning head for both sides of a sheet
B65H 29/60
Article switches or diverters: diverting the stream into alternative paths
H04N 1/0058
Inverting the sheet prior to refeeding: using at least one dead-end path, e.g. using a sheet ejection path
H04N 1/00588
Conveying sheets before or after scanning: to the scanning position

Family

US 2007/0159670 A1Pre-grant publication · published 12 Jul 2007
US 7,746,524 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.

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