Importance

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Abstract

A transport system for charging and delivering right-sign electrostatic toner to an image receiving member includes a toner conveyor having a loading/filtering segment and a delivery, segment. Each segment has a number of parallel electrodes connected to a DC-biased multiphase electric power to establish a traveling electrostatic wave to move toner along the segment. The loading/filtering segment gathers toner from a supply and feeds unipolar toner to the delivery segment. The delivery segment delivers right sign toner to the image receiving member. The traveling wave in the loading/filtering segment moves toner in either a synchronous surfing mode or an asynchronous hunching mode to the delivery segment. The traveling wave in the delivery segment moves toner in an asynchronous hunching mode to the image receiving member. The traveling wave and the speed of toner movement in the loading/filtering segment and the delivery segment are subject to control by means of the bias, amplitude, and frequency of the electric power on the respective segments. First and second toner extractors adjacent to the conveyor are electrically biased to extract therefrom, respectively, wrong-sign toner before it reaches the image receiving member, and unused right-sign toner after it passes the image receiving member.

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First Claim