Image forming apparatus, cartridge and image forming method
AssigneeSamsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
InventorCheol-min Jeon
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes an image forming unit to receive an image forming agent from a cartridge having a state indicating element to form an image, a state setting unit to open the state indicating element, and a controller to determine a usage amount of the image forming agent used to form the image by recognizing identification information of the cartridge, and to control the state setting unit to open the state indicating element of the cartridge if the usage amount of the image forming agent is equal to or greater than a preset value.
Claims18
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- an image forming unit to form an image and to receive an image forming agent from a cartridge having a state indicating element;
- a state setting unit to open the state indicating element;
- and
- a controller to determine a usage amount of the image forming agent to be used to form the image by counting dots that form the image, and to control the state setting unit to open the state indicating element of the cartridge if the determined usage amount of the image forming agent is substantially equal to or greater than a preset value.
A cartridge, comprising:
- an accommodator to store an image forming agent to be supplied to an image forming apparatus to form an image;
- and
- a state indicating element to be opened by the image forming apparatus if a usage amount of the image forming agent required to form an image, which is determined by a controller counting dots needed to form the image, is substantially equal to or greater than a preset value.
An image forming method, comprising:
- recognizing identification information of a cartridge to determine whether the cartridge is genuine;
- determining a usage amount of an image forming agent to be used to form an image by counting dots needed to form the image;
- determining whether the usage amount of the image forming agent needed to form the image is greater than a preset value;
- and
- opening a state indicating element included in the cartridge if the usage amount is greater than the preset value.
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- a replaceable printing cartridge comprising an image forming agent, identification information, and a disable element to selectively disable the cartridge;
- and
- a controller to determine whether the cartridge is a genuine replaceable printing cartridge using the identification information, to determine the usage amount of the image forming agent by counting dots that form the image, to compare the amount of the image forming agent in the cartridge to the usage amount of the image forming agent required to form an image, and to control an image forming unit to form the image if the cartridge is not disabled by the disable element and the amount of the image forming agent in the cartridge is determined to be sufficient to form the image.
A non-transitory computer readable recording medium having encoded thereon computer instructions that when executed by a computer perform a method to control an image forming apparatus, the method comprising:
- recognizing identification information of a cartridge to determine whether the cartridge is a genuine replaceable printing cartridge;
- determining a usage amount of an image forming agent to be used to form an image by counting dots needed to form the image;
- determining whether the usage amount of the image forming agent needed to form the image is greater than a preset value;
- and
- opening a state indicating element included in the cartridge if the usage amount is greater than the preset value.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.