Abstract: A method of positioning an ink jet printhead in a printer includes dividing a bitmap into a plurality of rows of tiles. A subset of the rows of tiles to be printed in a next pass of the printhead is identified. Printable ones of the tiles in the subset of rows are identified. The printable tiles contain printable data. Within each printable tile, a top most location of the printable data and at least one of a left most location of the printable data and a right most location of the printable data are identified. A print medium is advanced in a feed direction until a portion of the print medium corresponding with the top most location of the printable data of at least one printable tile is substantially aligned with a top nozzle of the printhead.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for controlling a sheet feeder assembly for an imaging apparatus, the sheet feeder assembly including a motor coupled to a gear train for applying a rotational force to a sheet picker roller, a media supply tray for holding a media stack having a plurality of media sheets, and a buckler for buckling a top sheet of print media to separate the top sheet from the media stack, the method including the steps of driving the sheet picker roller at a initial velocity until a backlash of the gear train is eliminated and/or the top sheet has been buckled; and thereafter, accelerating the sheet picker roller from the initial velocity to a target velocity using selectable sheet picker roller velocity profiles.

Abstract: An improved control method is provided that combines conventional ON-OFF control and conventional phase-angle control to reduce the AC inrush current to an electrical load, such as a tungsten halogen lamp used as a heating element in a laser printer, so that the power control circuit can satisfy both the European flicker and European harmonic requirements. Phase-angle control is applied to the load for a very short time period when it is initially energized, then the control circuit quickly switches from phase-angle control to standard ON-OFF control to reduce the harmonics generated by conventional phase-angle control methodologies. The electrical load exhibits three possible states: power full OFF, power ramp-up, and power full ON. During the power ramp-up state, power supplied to the load is adjusted by delaying the phase angle of the firing pulse relative to the start of each AC half cycle.