Indirect electrostatic printer

Claim 1

An indirect electrostatic printer using an intermediate image medium, said printer comprising: a printing station for printing an electrostatic latent image on the intermediate medium, a developer station for developing the image on the intermediate medium, a combined transfer and fixing station for both transferring the image onto a final medium and for fixing the image thereon, and a coply delivery station, the improvement wherein said intermediate image medium comprises a flexible dielectric tape and means for mounting said tape in an open loop path running in sequence from a supply reel as a lower run, around an auxiliary roller from bottom to top over which its path is folded forming a top run passing across and above the supply reel and onto a take up reel, said open loop path running through all three of said stations in succession, means for driving said tape comprising at least one of said take up reel and said auxiliary roller, a pressure roller operatively associated with said auxiliary roller to define said combined transfer and fixing station for simultaneously transferring and fixing the image on the final medium, and means for supplying said final medium in the form of individual sheets to said combined transfer and fixing station between the nip of said pressure roller and said dielectric tape while in contact with the periphery of said auxiliary roller for driving said sheets by said auxiliary roller and said pressure roller onto the top run of said dielectric tape for conveying said sheets sequentially to said copy delivery station.