Communication between an image forming device and a replaceable supply item

• US 10,659,649 B2
• Filed: 04/12/2018
• Issued: 05/19/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 04/12/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lexmark International Incorporated (Ninestar Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Lexmark International Incorporated (Ninestar Corporation)
• Inventors: Foley, Nathan Wayne, Williams, Jennifer Topmiller, Woods, Gregory Scott, Moore, Jr., Jimmy Daniel
• Primary Examiner(s): Nam, Hyun
• Application Number:
  US15/951,604
• Publication Number:
  US 20190320085A1
• Time in Patent Office: 768 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/0865 Arrangements for supplying new developer
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/556 for toner consumption, e.g. pixel counting, toner coverage detection or toner density measurement
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4282 on a serial bus, e.g. I2C bus, SPI bus on daisy chain buses G06F13/4247
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/121 Facilitating exception or error detection and recovery, e.g. fault, media or consumables depleted
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/2346 according to a detected condition or state of the reproducing device, e.g. temperature or ink quantity
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32587 Controller

Abstract

A toner container installable in an image forming device having a controller according to one example embodiment includes a housing having a reservoir for storing toner. A chip is positioned on the housing and configured to receive a first write command from the controller of the image forming device. The chip is further configured to determine whether a transmission cycle bit of the first write command matches a transmission cycle bit of a second write command received by the chip from the controller of the image forming device previous to the first write command. The chip is further configured to resend to the controller of the image forming device a response to the second write command if the transmission cycle bit of the first write command matches the transmission cycle bit of the second write command.

Claims

1. A supply chip for use on a replaceable supply item of an image forming device, comprising processing circuitry configured to communicate as a slave node of an I2C communication bus with a controller of the image forming device as a master node of the I2C communication bus, the processing circuitry configured to receive a write command from the controller of the image forming device where prior to sending the encrypted command to the supply chip, the write command was previously sent by the controller to a system chip which decrypts and re-encrypts the command according to a format that is understood by the supply chip and returned the re-encrypted command to the controller to be sent to the supply chip, to determine whether a transmission cycle bit of the received write command matches a transmission cycle bit of a preceding write command received by the processing circuitry from the controller of the image forming device, and to resend to the controller of the image forming device a response to the preceding write command upon the processing circuitry receiving a read command from the controller of the image forming device corresponding to the received write command if the transmission cycle bit of the received write command matches the transmission cycle bit of the preceding write command.

2. The supply chip of claim 1, further comprising the processing circuitry configured to execute the received write command and to send to the controller of the image forming device a response to the received write command upon receiving the read command from the controller of the image forming device corresponding to the received write command if the transmission cycle bit of the received write command does not match the transmission cycle bit of the preceding write command.

3. The supply chip of claim 1, further comprising the processing circuitry configured to determine whether a command ID of the received write command matches a command ID of the preceding write command if the transmission cycle bit of the received write command matches the transmission cycle bit of the preceding write command and to perform said resend to the controller of the image forming device the response to the preceding write command upon receiving the read command from the controller of the image forming device corresponding to the received write command if the command ID of the received write command matches the command ID of the preceding write command.

4. The supply chip of claim 3, further comprising the processing circuitry configured to send an error message to the controller of the image forming device upon receiving the read command from the controller of the image forming device corresponding to the received write command if the command ID of the received write command does not match the command ID of the preceding write command.

5. The supply chip of claim 3, wherein the processing circuitry configured to determine whether the command ID of the received write command matches the command ID of the preceding write command includes the processing circuitry configured to determine whether the command ID of the received write command indicates that the received write command is a request from the controller of the image forming device for the processing circuitry to send a response to a most recent write command received by the processing circuitry from the controller of the image forming device prior to the processing circuitry indicating a busy condition to the controller of the image forming device.