Patent ID: 8162433
Filing Date: 2012-04-24
Classification: B41J

Abstract:
1. A system for operating an ink jet image generating system comprising: an image capture device configured to generate a digital image of an ink image on an image receiving member of an ink jet image generating system; an image evaluator configured to detect missing inkjets in a printhead of an ink jet image generating system from the digital image of the ink image on the image receiving member; and a controller configured to select one of an operate-with-missing-jets mode, a substitution mode, and a recovery mode as an operational mode for the ink jet image generating system in response to the image evaluator detecting at least one missing ink jet, to update a history record for each missing jet detected by the image evaluator, the history record including an ink jet usage parameter, a number of times detected as being missing count, a number of times recovered count, and a position of ink drops ejected by the ink jet detected to be missing, and to identify a detected missing ink jet as being a bad jet in response to the number of times detected as being missing count in the history record for the detected missing ink jet being equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold.