Method of controlling an image forming apparatus

• US 20060168437A1
• Filed: 01/19/2006
• Published: 07/27/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/21/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: HP Printing Korea Co., Ltd. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Eun, Jong-moon
• Granted Patent: US 7,516,318 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/1
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/55 Self-diagnostics; Malfunction or lifetime display
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/553 Monitoring or warning means for exhaustion or lifetime end of consumables, e.g. indication of insufficient copy sheet quantity for a job
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 21/1889 for auto-setting of process parameters, lifetime, usage

Abstract

A method of controlling an image forming apparatus having at least one consumption part. The method includes fetching specification information corresponding to the at least one consumption part, detecting whether control information for controlling a printing operation of the image forming apparatus according to the specification information is present in a memory of the image forming apparatus, storing the specification information of the at least one consumption part and the control information about the printing operation into the memory of the image forming apparatus when the control information is not present in the memory, and controlling the printing operation of the image forming apparatus according to the control information stored in the memory of the image forming apparatus.

Claims

1. A method of controlling an image forming apparatus having at least one consumption part, the method comprising:

fetching specification information corresponding to the at least one consumption part from the at least one consumption part;

detecting whether control information for controlling a printing operation of the image forming apparatus according to the specification information is present in a memory of the image forming apparatus;

storing the specification information of the at least one consumption part and the control information corresponding to the specification information into the memory of the image forming apparatus when the control information is not present in the memory, and

controlling the printing operation of the image forming apparatus according to the control information stored in the memory of the image forming apparatus.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein after defining a specification-recognition-index of consumption parts containing a combination of the specification information for each consumption part in the image forming apparatus, the memory stores the specification information of the at least one consumption part in a table corresponding to the specification-recognition-index of consumption parts.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the memory stores control information to control a printing condition of the image forming apparatus as a table corresponding to the specification-recognition-index of consumption parts.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the printing condition comprises a printing speed of the image forming apparatus.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the specification information of the at least one consumption part comprises specification information about at least one of a development roller, a supply roller, a regulation blade, a charging roller, a photoconductive drum, and a toner.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the control information corresponding to the specification information of the at least one consumption part comprises control information to control a voltage applied to at least one of a development roller, a supply roller, and a charging roller.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the control information corresponding to the specification information of the at least one consumption part comprises control information to control a light power emitted from a luminous source of a scanning unit of the image forming apparatus.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the control information corresponding to the specification information of the at least one consumption part comprises control information to control a fixing temperature of the image forming apparatus.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising

fetching specification information corresponding to the at least one consumption part and control information corresponding to the specification information from a sub memory of the at least one consumption part;

detecting whether the sub memory control information corresponds to control information in a memory of the image forming apparatus by analyzing the fetched specification information; and

controlling the printing operation of the image forming apparatus based on the memory control information when the sub memory control information corresponds to the memory control information without storing the sub memory control information in the memory of the image forming apparatus.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory stores the specification information and the control information fetched from the at least one consumption part as a list.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the list is located in a reserved area of the memory of the image forming apparatus, reserved to store the specification information and the control information fetched from the at least one consumption part.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one consumption part comprises a sub memory to store the specification information of the at least one consumption part and the control information corresponding to the specification information.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one consumption part comprises a sub memory to store control information to control one or more of a voltage, a fixing temperature of a fixing unit, and an intensity of radiation of a Laser Scanning Unit.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

fetching specification information corresponding to the at least one consumption part from a sub memory of the at least one consumption part;

determining that a first control information for the at least one consumption part stored in a memory of the image forming apparatus does not correspond to the specification information;

fetching a second control information corresponding to the specification information from the sub memory;

renewing the memory by storing the second control information in the memory to replace the first control information; and

controlling a printing operation of the image forming apparatus based on the second control information stored in the memory.

15. A method of controlling an image forming apparatus comprising at least one consumption part, the method comprising:

determining whether control information stored in a memory of the apparatus is corresponding control information, which corresponds to specification information of the at least one consumption part, or non-corresponding information, which does not correspond to the specification information;

when the control information is determined to be non-corresponding control information, replacing the non-corresponding control information with corresponding control information; and

controlling an operation of the image forming apparatus according to the corresponding control information stored in the memory.

17. The consumption part of claim 15, further comprising a sub memory to store the specification information and the control information.

18. The consumption part of claim 15, wherein the control information comprises information to control one or more of a voltage, a fixing temperature of a fixing unit, and a light power emitted from a luminous source of a scanning unit.

19. An image forming apparatus comprising the consumption part of claim 15.

20. The image forming apparatus of claim 19, further comprising a memory and at least one of a development roller, a supply roller, a regulation blade, a charging roller, a photoconductive drum, and a toner.

16. A consumption part usable with an image forming apparatus, the consumption part comprising:

specification information specific to the consumption part; and

control information corresponding to the consumption part to control an operation of the image forming device.