Hard imaging methods, liquid marking agent monitoring methods, and hard imaging devices
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsBoaz Eden, William D. Holland, Omer Gila, Moshe Peles
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Abstract
Hard Imaging Methods, Liquid Marking Agent Monitoring Methods, and Hard Imaging Devices are described. According to one embodiment, a hard imaging method includes forming a plurality of latent images using a hard imaging device, using the hard imaging device, developing the latent images using a liquid marking agent, wherein bubbles are present in the liquid marking agent during the developing, calibrating the hard imaging device, and reducing bubbles present in the liquid marking agent during the calibrating compared with the bubbles present in the liquid marking agent during the developing. Additional embodiments are described in the disclosure.
Claims21
A hard imaging method comprising:
- forming a latent image using a hard imaging device;
- developing the latent image using a liquid marking agent, wherein bubbles are present in the liquid marking agent during the developing;
- calibrating the hard imaging device;
- reducing bubbles present in the liquid marking agent during the calibrating compared with the bubbles present in the liquid marking agent during the developing;
- and
- monitoring a characteristic of the liquid marking agent during formation of the latent image using the hard imaging device, wherein the calibrating comprises calibrating the monitoring, the monitoring comprises first monitoring using a first sensor, the calibrating further comprises second monitoring the characteristic using a second sensor to calibrate the first sensor, and the second sensor has an increased degree of accuracy for monitoring the characteristic of the liquid marking agent compared with the first sensor and an increased sensitivity to the presence of bubbles in the liquid marking agent compared with the first sensor.
A liquid marking agent monitoring method comprising:
- first monitoring of a liquid marking agent at a first time during development of a latent image using a hard imaging device;
- second monitoring of the liquid marking agent at a second time to calibrate the first monitoring of the liquid marking agent;
- and
- reducing bubbles present in the liquid marking agent during the second monitoring relative to bubbles present in the liquid marking agent during the first monitoring, wherein the first monitoring and the second monitoring comprise monitoring a characteristic of the liquid marking agent using respective ones of a first sensor and a second sensor, and further comprising calibrating the first sensor using the second monitoring by the second sensor.
A hard imaging device comprising:
- a development assembly to develop a latent image using a liquid marking agent;
- a first sensor to monitor the liquid marking agent during the development of the latent image;
- a calibration assembly to perform a calibration operation to calibrate the first sensor, the calibration assembly having a second sensor to monitor the liquid marking agent during the calibration operation, the first sensor to be calibrated using the second sensor, the second sensor having an increased degree of accuracy for monitoring the characteristic of the liquid marking agent compared with the first sensor and an increased sensitivity to the presence of bubbles in the liquid marking agent compared with the first sensor;
- and
- a processor programmed to control an operation of the development assembly to reduce bubbles present in the liquid marking agent during the calibration operation performed by the calibration assembly to calibrate the hard imaging device compared with bubbles present in the liquid marking agent during the development of the latent image.
A tangible article of manufacture comprising a machine-readable storage medium storing machine-readable instructions that, when executed, cause a processor to at least:
- form a latent image using a hard imaging device, the latent image formed using a liquid marking agent, wherein bubbles are present in the liquid marking agent during developing;
- calibrate the hard imaging device;
- reduce bubbles present in the liquid marking agent during the calibrating relative to the bubbles present in the liquid marking agent during the developing;
- monitor a characteristic using a first sensor;
- and
- calibrate the first sensor using a second sensor having an increased sensitivity to the characteristic of the liquid marking agent compared with the first sensor and an increased sensitivity to the presence of bubbles in the liquid marking agent compared with the first sensor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.