Patent Grant
7068963
The present invention relates to remanufacturing and modifying electrophotographic toner cartridges, and more particularly to techniques for modifying an electrophotographic toner cartridge intended to operate in one type of imaging device to operate in another type of imaging device.
In the imaging industry, there is a growing market for the remanufacture and refurbishing of various types of imaging components such as toner cartridges, ink cartridges, magnetic rollers, seals, and the like. Toner cartridges, once spent, are unusable for their originally intended purpose. Without a refurbishing process, they would simply be discarded, even though the cartridge itself may still have potential life. As a result, techniques have been developed specifically to address this issue. These processes may entail, for example, the disassembly of the various structures of the cartridge, replacing toner, cleaning, adjusting or replacing any worn components and reassembling the cartridge.
The differences between printer cartridges for various types of printing devices may only be slight or subtle. In many instances it may only be an indentation or protuberance in the body of the cartridge. In other cases it may be not only a physical attribute of the body of the cartridge, but also the addition of a communications device. Certain style cartridges may be plentiful and relatively inexpensive simply because of certain factors such as the supply in the market or initial cost while other style cartridges may not be available in quantity or too expensive for cost effective use in remanufacturing. The easiest and most economic solution would be to simply convert the inexpensive style cartridges into the more costly style cartridge in order to meet this market demand.
In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, techniques are provided for modifying a toner cartridge intended to operate in one type of imaging device to operate in another type of imaging device.
In one aspect of the present invention, a toner cartridge intended to operate with a first type of imaging device includes a drum shutter connected to a waste bin, with the drum shutter including first and second shutter arms. A method of modifying the toner cartridge intended for operation in the first type of imaging device to operate in a second type of imaging device includes removing a portion of the first shutter arm.
In another aspect of the present invention, the method includes removing a portion of the waste bin adjacent to the first shutter arm.
In another aspect of the present invention, the method includes removing a second portion of the waste bin to form a hole in the waste bin and attaching a chip mounting patch to the waste bin to fill the hole. A computer chip may be attached to the chip mounting patch.
A more complete understanding of the present invention, as well as further features and advantages of the invention, will be apparent from the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings.
The following detailed description of preferred embodiments refers to the accompanying drawings which illustrate specific embodiments of the invention. In the discussion that follows, specific techniques for converting an HP1200 toner printer cartridge for use in an HP1300 printer are disclosed. Other embodiments having different structures and operations for the conversion of other types of cartridges for use with other types of imaging devices and printers do not depart from the scope of the present invention.
Other laser printers, such as the HP1300 laser printer, utilize a toner cartridge with many similarities, but also with a few important differences which prevent an unmodified HP1200 toner cartridge from operating in an HP1300 printer. In order to convert an HP1200 toner cartridge to an HP1300 compatible toner cartridge, certain modifications need to be made to the HP1200 toner cartridge to account for these differences.
HP1300 toner cartridges include electronic chips having memory elements that communicate with the HP1300 printer to report toner levels and provide other functionality. These electronic chips are not utilized by HP1200 printers, and thus are not included with the waste bin assembly 100 of the prior art toner cartridge. In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, as shown in
Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein, those of ordinary skill in the art appreciate that any arrangement which is calculated to achieve the same purpose may be substituted for the specific embodiments shown and that the invention has other applications in other environments. This application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of the present invention. The following claims are in no way intended to limit the scope of the invention to the specific embodiments described herein.
The present application is a continuation-in-part (CIP) of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/319,088 entitled “Method and Apparatus For Converting Toner Cartridges to Fit Various Types of Printing Machines” filed on Dec. 14, 2002 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,904,248 and incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
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| Child | 10797968 | US |
