Patent ID: 7623819

Claim:
A heater controller system for a fusing apparatus configured for fusing marking material to a substrate in a printing system, said heater controller system comprising: a heating element having at least two sections; a power source for supplying power to said heating element wherein the power source provides an AC waveform; and at least one unidirectional switch configured to selectively control at least two bidirectional switches for selectively providing current supplied by the power source to at least one of the at least two sections during operation of said heater controller system in one of at least two modes of operation, each of the at least two modes of operation corresponds to a particular size of said substrate, wherein the heater control system is configured such that when power is provided to at least one of the at least two sections of the heating clement via a first half of the AC waveform, power is provided to at least another of the at least two sections of the heating element via a second half of the AC waveform.