Patent ID: 7798590

Claim:
A solid ink printer comprising: an ink loading subsystem for receiving solid ink and delivering the solid ink to a melt plate for converting the solid ink to liquid ink; a print head for receiving the liquid ink; an intermediate imaging member that rotates in proximity to the print head for receiving liquid ink ejected from the print head; a transfer subsystem for transferring the ink from the intermediate imaging member onto a sheet of media; and an electronics module for controlling operation of the solid ink printer, the electronics module further comprising: a communication interface for receiving user detected signals, user detected data messages, and print jobs from user devices coupled to the solid ink printer, the user detected signal indicating user operation of a user device, and a printer controller for setting a power consumption level for the solid ink printer in response to receipt of the user detected signal, the printer controller including: a profile compiler configured to compile usage profiles from user detected signals and data messages received from user devices coupled to the solid ink printer, to measure parameters related to detection of user device operation and the print jobs received from user devices, to compute an availability factor for a user device coupled to the solid ink printer from the measured parameters related to the detection of user device operation and the print jobs received from user devices; an adjustment signal generator for comparing a computed availability factor for a user device to a power level parameter to determine whether to adjust the power level consumption; and a memory for storing a usage profile for each user device coupled to the printing device.