Charles Ruffino

US Patent:

6595611, Jul 22, 2003

Filed:

Oct 1, 2002

Appl. No.:

10/262460

Inventors:

Charles A. Ruffino - Webster NY

Assignee:

Xerox Corporation - Stamford CT

International Classification:

B41J 2938

US Classification:

347 5, 347 23

Abstract:

An ink recorder and a method of tracking ink ejections from nozzles of a printhead in the ink recorder to bypass or reduce maintenance of the nozzles is provided. In one aspect, the ink recorder includes: a printhead with a plurality of ink ejecting nozzles arranged in a single column; a print controller with a first and a second raster buffer; a first and a second stroke buffer; a DMA channel; a print engine; and a maintenance controller. In another aspect, the method controls printhead nozzle maintenance during a print job in an ink recorder that prints an image using a plurality of color inks, wherein the single column of nozzles in the printhead includes a segment of active nozzles associated with each color ink and one or more inactive nozzles between each adjacent segment.