Patent ID: 8548356

Claim:
Dry electrophotographic (EP) printing apparatus, comprising: a) first and second toner bottles, each including: i) a supply volume and a waste volume separated by a separator that permits toner to pass from the waste volume to the supply volume; and ii) a status recorder adapted to retain state information about the respective toner bottle, the status recorder having waste and supply states; b) a waste receptacle adapted to receive the first toner bottle in the waste state; c) a supply receptacle adapted to receive the second toner bottle only in the supply state; d) a printing module including: i) one or more imaging members, wherein at least one of the imaging members is adapted to receive dry toner from the supply volume of the second toner bottle in the supply receptacle, and at least one of the imaging members is adapted to apply dry toner to a receiver to form a print image; and ii) a cleaning device for removing toner from at least one of the imaging members and transporting the removed toner to the waste volume of the first toner bottle in the waste receptacle; and e) a toggle for changing the state of the status recorder of the first toner bottle in the waste receptacle to the supply state, so that the waste toner in the waste volume of the first toner bottle is made available to be used as supply toner in the supply receptacle.