Operator replaceable component life tracking system

• US 20030095278A1
• Filed: 11/05/2001
• Published: 05/22/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 11/05/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Midwest Athletics and Sports Alliance LLC (Midwest Youth A&S, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: NEXPRESS SOLUTIONS LLC (Eastman Kodak Company)
• Inventors: Carling, Richard Robert Tilney, Doty, Kenneth Thomas, Schwartz, Thomas Leonard
• Granted Patent: US 6,718,285 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.14
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/55 Self-diagnostics; Malfunction or lifetime display

Abstract

The present invention uses a concept of Operator Replaceable Component (ORC) devices that allows an operator that is not a skilled field engineer or service technician, to perform maintenance on a digital printer, resulting in significantly higher uptime for the press. The ORC devices employed by the present invention have an expected life span and the system can track the remaining life for each of the ORC devices and prompts the operator when they should be replaced. Preferably, the recent use of the digital printer is compared against the remaining life of the ORC device with the shortest remaining life. The recent use of the digital printer is used to decrement the remaining life of the ORC devices until an ORC device needs replacement. The operator is then notified of the need to replace the ORC device that has expired.

Claims

1. A system with operator enabled maintenance comprising:

at least one computational element within said system;

a plurality of operator replaceable component (ORC) devices within said system, each of said ORC devices having an expected life span;

a use mechanism coupled to each said computational element and said ORC devices, said use mechanism tracking use of at least one of said ORC devices using a predetermined parameter;

a comparison mechanism that compares use of said ORC devices to said expected life span; and

an operator alert mechanism responsive to said comparison mechanism to provide said operator alert when the result of said comparison satisfies a predetermined criteria.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said computational element is operatively coupled to a display that can provide a current status of said expected life span for said ORC devices.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein said predetermined criteria further comprises at least one of said expected life spans.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein predetermined criteria is said expected life span for a single of said ORC devices having the shortest expected life span.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein said operator alert mechanism is a user interface.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein said user interface is a graphical user interface.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein said system is a printing device and wherein said use mechanism further comprises a number of pages printed.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein said predetermined parameter further comprises a categorization of pages printed.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein said predetermined parameter further comprises the size of pages printed.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein said predetermined parameter further comprises a color related parameter.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein said operator alert mechanism further comprises a send reminder interval set to alert the operator at a predetermined interval.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein said send reminder interval further comprises as said predetermined interval a number of pages printed.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein said computational element is operatively coupled to a graphical user interface (GUI), the operator is alerted by said operator alert via said GUI, said operator alert further comprising said send reminder interval being sent to said GUI and said send reminder interval being alterable by the operator via said GUI.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein said reminder interval can be enabled and disabled by the operator via said GUI.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein said predetermined criteria further comprises a predetermined threshold relative to said ORC devices.

16. A method for providing operator maintenance on a system, comprising:

providing a plurality of operator replaceable component devices on said system, each of the devices having an expected lifetime;

determining a remaining life span for at least one of said plurality of operator replaceable component devices;

comparing said remaining life span with a predetermined threshold; and

responding to a result of the comparing step indicating that said predetermined threshold has been exceeded.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the step of responding further comprises notifying the operator that said predetermined threshold has been exceeded.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the responding step further comprises notifying the operator on a periodic basis that said predetermined threshold has been exceeded.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the step of responding further comprises determining if said operator replaceable component device for which said predetermined threshold has been exceeded has been replaced.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the step of responding further comprises adjusting said remaining life span for at least one of said operator replaceable component devices and then returning to the determining step and sequentially repeating the steps after the determining step.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein the step of determining further comprises the step of waiting for a predetermined period before performing the comparing step.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the step of waiting further comprises as said predetermined period the same units used to determine said life span.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the step of waiting further comprises as said predetermined period said predetermined threshold.