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US 9,283,772 B2Granted
Drying assembly
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsFrancisco Javier Perez Gellida, Mikel Zuza Irurueta, Oriol Borrell Avila, Juan Manuel Valero Navazo, Roger Bastardas Puigoriol
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A drying assembly is disclosed. The drying assembly has at least 2 fan units where each fan unit has a fan. The fan speed of each fan is adjusted independently to control the air temperature from the fan. The airflow through all of the fans is maintained at a constant value.
Claims18
A printer, comprising:
- fan units to force air onto media during a printing operation, each of the fan units including:
- a fan;
- a heater to heat air moved by the fan;
- and
- a temperature sensor positioned near an exhaust of the fan unit;
- and
- a controller to, in response to temperature values obtained from the temperature sensors, at least one of (1) dynamically adjust at least one of the fans or (2) dynamically adjust at least one of the heaters to maintain a substantially uniform temperature across a width of the media during the printing operation and to maintain a sum of air flow exiting the fans to be at a substantially constant value.
4 more elements
A printer, comprising:
- a number N of fan units directed to force air to a drying zone, where N is an integer 2 or greater and each fan unit includes:
- a fan;
- a heating element positioned to heat air moved by the fan;
- and
- a temperature sensor positioned near an exhaust of the fan unit;
- a controller coupled to each fan unit, the controller to monitor the temperature sensor in each fan unit, the controller to independently adjust a speed of each fan to maintain a same temperature at all N fan units, the controller to keep a total airflow through all N fan units at a constant value, wherein the speed of each fan is independently adjustable using a fan speed control signal, where each fan speed control signal is a pulse width modulation (PWM) signal, and wherein an adjusted fan speed control signal for each fan is equal to PWMN(t)+Kint*err_int_N(t+Δt), wherein PWMN(t) is a fan speed control signal at time t for the Nth fan unit, Kint is a gain for the interval delta time (Δt), and err_int_N(t+Δt) is an error signal for the Nth fan unit for the interval delta time (Δt).
3 more elements
A printer, comprising:
- a number N of fan units directed to force air to a drying zone, where N is an integer 2 or greater and each fan unit includes:
- a fan;
- a heating element positioned to heat air moved by the fan;
- and
- a temperature sensor positioned near an exhaust of the fan unit;
- a controller coupled to each fan unit, the controller to monitor the temperature sensor in each fan unit, the controller to independently adjust a speed of each fan to maintain a same temperature at all N fan units, the controller to keep a total airflow through all N fan units at a constant value, the controller to determine an average temperature for all of the fans;
- the controller to determine a delta temperature for each fan where the delta temperature equals the average temperature minus a temperature at each fan;
- the controller to maintain a same fan speed for each of the fans when the delta temperature for all of the fans is below a threshold.
5 more elements
A method of controlling a drying assembly, comprising
- forcing air onto media during a printing operation using fan units of a printer, the fan units respectively including a fan, a heater, and a temperature sensor;
- obtaining temperature values from the temperature sensors, the temperature values representing a temperature of air exiting the fan units;
- and
- dynamically adjusting at least one of (1) at least one of the fans or (2) at least one of the heaters to maintain a substantially uniform temperature across a width of the media during the printing operation and to maintain a sum of air flow exiting the fans to be at a substantially constant value.
1 more element
A method of controlling a drying assembly, comprising
- determining a temperature of air leaving each of N fan units where N is an integer greater than one;
- calculating an average air temperature for all N fans;
- decreasing a fan speed for each fan with air temperatures lower than the average air temperature;
- increasing the fan speed for each fan with an air temperature higher than the average air temperature;
- maintaining a sum of the airflow through all N fans at a constant value, wherein the fan speed is controlled using a pulse width modulation (PWM) signal, and adjusted fan speed control signal for each fan is equal to PWMN(t)+Kint*err_int_N(t+Δt), where PWMN(t) is a fan speed control signal at time t for the Nth fan unit, Kint is a gain for the interval delta time (Δt), and err_int_N(t+Δt) is an error signal for the Nth fan unit for the interval delta time (Δt).
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.