Patent ID: 7720404

Claim:
A method of operating a multi-color image forming device in a mono-color mode comprising: determining whether an initial maximum number of mono-color pages have been printed; when the initial maximum number of mono-color pages has not been printed, printing the mono-color page with a first imaging station that is last in a process direction while a remainder of imaging stations are in a non-operational mode and; when the initial maximum number of mono-color pages has been printed, activating the non-operational imaging stations a limited first amount and printing the mono-color page with the first imaging station; determining an overall number of mono-color pages printed based on a number of incremental rotations available for each non-operational imaging station and the initial maximum number of mono-color pages for each of the incremental rotations; and when the overall number of mono-color pages have been printed, resetting the non-operational imaging stations by activating the non-operational imaging stations a greater amount than the first amount and printing the mono-color page with the first imaging station.