Laser printer causes electrical issues in my home office
December 31, 2024 12:15 PM Subscribe
My home office includes a Xerox Phaser 6140 color laser printer. My computer equipment (excluding the printer) is plugged into a 1500VA UPS. When the printer turns on, it seems to draw a lot of power about every 35 seconds, which causes the office lights to flicker and the UPS to make clicking noises. Is there any way to smooth out these electrical tansients?
The printer and the UPS are plugged into the wall. The office has two power outlets, and it doesn't make any difference which one I use for the printer. I bought a Panamax MR4300 power line conditioner and surge protector, but this device didn't help. I tried plugging the printer into it (and the UPS into the wall), as well as plugging the printer into the wall and the UPS into the Panamax. And I tried plugging both devices into the Panamax. None of these three configurations made any difference. The Panamax and the UPS both have LED displays that show the voltage, and I see the voltage drop significantly on both of them whenever the printer draws power to heat the fuser.
The flickering lights and the clicking UPS are annoying, and they continue until the printer finally goes into sleep mode. Is there any way to fix this problem, aside from running a long extension cord to plug the printer into a different circuit?
The printer and the UPS are plugged into the wall. The office has two power outlets, and it doesn't make any difference which one I use for the printer. I bought a Panamax MR4300 power line conditioner and surge protector, but this device didn't help. I tried plugging the printer into it (and the UPS into the wall), as well as plugging the printer into the wall and the UPS into the Panamax. And I tried plugging both devices into the Panamax. None of these three configurations made any difference. The Panamax and the UPS both have LED displays that show the voltage, and I see the voltage drop significantly on both of them whenever the printer draws power to heat the fuser.
The flickering lights and the clicking UPS are annoying, and they continue until the printer finally goes into sleep mode. Is there any way to fix this problem, aside from running a long extension cord to plug the printer into a different circuit?
Response by poster: @number9dream The printer has a sleep mode that kicks in about 30 minutes after you're done printing. As long as the printer is in sleep mode, everything is fine. Also, I'm forced to print fairly often (maybe two or three times a day), so I keep the printer on all the time.
posted by akk2014 at 12:27 PM on December 31, 2024
posted by akk2014 at 12:27 PM on December 31, 2024
If you are seeing a "significant" voltage drop every time the laser kicks on, then I suspect a wiring problem somewhere in the circuit. The typical "acceptable" upper limit for a voltage drop is 3% at full load, and I seriously doubt that the entire load on that circuit is getting anywhere near it's rated load even when the laser kicks on.
If there is a flakey junction along the circuit, that could be the cause of the drop drop when the laser kicks on to warm up and the circuit goes under load. The UPS will then see the drop and start warning you of an impending outage.
I'd have somebody look into this as it could be indicative of a serious problem that could cause a fire.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 12:34 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
If there is a flakey junction along the circuit, that could be the cause of the drop drop when the laser kicks on to warm up and the circuit goes under load. The UPS will then see the drop and start warning you of an impending outage.
I'd have somebody look into this as it could be indicative of a serious problem that could cause a fire.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 12:34 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: @SegFaultCoreDump The house is pretty old, and the lights flicker whenever a big appliance is turned on (so the problem isn't limited to the office with the laser printer). I didn't pay close attention to the voltage drops, but I think they went from 120V to about 110V for a second or two.
posted by akk2014 at 12:39 PM on December 31, 2024
posted by akk2014 at 12:39 PM on December 31, 2024
I suspect the problem is that the fusor (big electric heater) looks like a short circuit when powered up (similar to old school incandescent lamps) and uses "bang-bang" thermal control. keeping it on a UPS is probably shortening the life of it and it should just be on a high-quality surge protector
posted by Dr. Twist at 12:42 PM on December 31, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by Dr. Twist at 12:42 PM on December 31, 2024 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: @Dr. Twist: The printer is not on the UPS. The UPS is for all the other computer equipment.
posted by akk2014 at 12:45 PM on December 31, 2024
posted by akk2014 at 12:45 PM on December 31, 2024
The house is pretty old, and the lights flicker whenever a big appliance is turned onI'd call somebody to look at the system. A 10v drop is not normal. It could be something simple like a bad connection at the service entrance or outlet. Worse case is that the home has a bunch of old knob and tube wiring and you will have some harder (read "expensive") decisions to make.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 12:54 PM on December 31, 2024 [3 favorites]
I don't have a solution for you, but back in the 90s, when my company was moving, I hosted a big HP laser printer for a weekend, and noticed similar behavior. We didn't notice any issues with the appliances, but they may have been wired for circuits that could handle heavier loads.
My parents recently sold their house (built in the 60s), and its wiring was rated for half the amperage of modern homes, so that could be the issue.
posted by Spike Glee at 1:00 PM on December 31, 2024
My parents recently sold their house (built in the 60s), and its wiring was rated for half the amperage of modern homes, so that could be the issue.
posted by Spike Glee at 1:00 PM on December 31, 2024
Best answer: According to the user guide (p. 24), you can at least set it so it goes to sleep in 5 minutes instead of 30, which will make this less annoying. The electrical specifications say it can draw up to 11A (and perhaps in reality more for a short period), which when combined with other power consumption on the same circuit, could be quite a bit for an old circuit with a long wiring run.
I don't think this is necessarily something to worry about or an indication of a wiring problem, as this kind of thing used to be common with older laser printers.
posted by ssg at 1:28 PM on December 31, 2024 [2 favorites]
I don't think this is necessarily something to worry about or an indication of a wiring problem, as this kind of thing used to be common with older laser printers.
posted by ssg at 1:28 PM on December 31, 2024 [2 favorites]
A 10V drop on a 120V 12A circuit suggests 10V * 12A = 120W of energy is going somewhere during that drop. You know how much heat an incandescent 100W bulb puts off? That could be happening in your walls.
This could be an overloaded circuit, so first thing Id try is running the printer off an outlet on a different circuit breaker as a first step.
Could also be poor contact (eg due to corrosion) where the wiring comes to the outlet, which is easy to address, or inadequate wiring to the outlet.
Could be other things (maybe a floating ground), but it would be good to have an electrician look at the outlet and measure the voltage drop to see if it's something that needs to be addressed.
posted by zippy at 2:04 PM on December 31, 2024 [3 favorites]
This could be an overloaded circuit, so first thing Id try is running the printer off an outlet on a different circuit breaker as a first step.
Could also be poor contact (eg due to corrosion) where the wiring comes to the outlet, which is easy to address, or inadequate wiring to the outlet.
Could be other things (maybe a floating ground), but it would be good to have an electrician look at the outlet and measure the voltage drop to see if it's something that needs to be addressed.
posted by zippy at 2:04 PM on December 31, 2024 [3 favorites]
Assuming you are in the US, then 120v at 15 amps is a max of 1800W per outlet, a laser printer can draw a peak of around 1000W so combined with other items and an old house/wiring that may be pushing things.
aside from running a long extension cord to plug the printer into a different circuit
You could switch to a Wi-fi connected printer to avoid the cabling.
posted by Lanark at 2:41 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
aside from running a long extension cord to plug the printer into a different circuit
You could switch to a Wi-fi connected printer to avoid the cabling.
posted by Lanark at 2:41 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
I don't have an answer, but some sympathy: our combination of our current place and printer (a Brother laser printer) causes just this. It doesn't matter which circuit it is on; on one of our heavier loaded ones, it would regularly trip the breaker.
Our landlord, who's a retired electrician, looked at it and couldn't find anything amiss. We don't have to print often, so keep it on a lightly loaded, out of the way circuit (only one light on it), and turned off most of the time.
posted by chiefthe at 3:29 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
Our landlord, who's a retired electrician, looked at it and couldn't find anything amiss. We don't have to print often, so keep it on a lightly loaded, out of the way circuit (only one light on it), and turned off most of the time.
posted by chiefthe at 3:29 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
Plug the printer into the UPS, on the battery backup side.
The user guide that @ssg linked to says the printer can pull up to 280W. The UPS battery can provide up to 900W.
posted by at at 4:31 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
The user guide that @ssg linked to says the printer can pull up to 280W. The UPS battery can provide up to 900W.
posted by at at 4:31 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
This would be overkill for a single printer-- but if your otherwise in the market for one, you could get a little 'camping' battery powerstation and use it's UPS mode and have your printer plugged into it, and it into the wall-- on some units you can set the charging amperage (or charging time of day)-- so you could limit it to recharge at 2 amps, or from 2am to slowly refill it. I'm aware that the Bluetti ones allow that.
posted by Static Vagabond at 6:19 PM on December 31, 2024
posted by Static Vagabond at 6:19 PM on December 31, 2024
If your problem were my problem, and I were seriously contemplating paying big-battery camping power station prices to solve it, I'd be paying a sparky to fix my horrible house wiring instead.
Before I did that, though, I'd acquire a cheap analog multimeter (because they respond so much faster than the digital kind) and monitor the voltage of my AC supply mains right at the breaker box.
If the momentary thousand-watt load spike from the laser printer was causing as much of a voltage dip for the entire house as it was at any outlet downstream of the printer, I'd know that spending money on a sparky wouldn't fix it, and I'd need to be complaining to my electricity supplier about out-of-spec supply voltage under load.
posted by flabdablet at 8:57 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
Before I did that, though, I'd acquire a cheap analog multimeter (because they respond so much faster than the digital kind) and monitor the voltage of my AC supply mains right at the breaker box.
If the momentary thousand-watt load spike from the laser printer was causing as much of a voltage dip for the entire house as it was at any outlet downstream of the printer, I'd know that spending money on a sparky wouldn't fix it, and I'd need to be complaining to my electricity supplier about out-of-spec supply voltage under load.
posted by flabdablet at 8:57 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
Another test worth doing is to try to simulate the load spike your printer is causing using a much simpler device like a fan heater or portable electric cooktop. Get one with the highest rated power you can find, something that's theoretically supposed to be the only thing plugged into any circuit it runs on.
If switching on your high-draw appliance doesn't cause a standing voltage depression at least as deep as the momentary ones that your printer is causing, then your printer's fuser is drawing simply insane amounts of power at startup and might well be faulty.
On the other hand, if it does depress the supply voltage to about the same extent the printer spikes do, you've got a nice controllable diagnostic tool that's going to be much easier to use to track down exactly where the load-induced drop is coming from than a printer that spikes its current draw whenever it feels like it.
posted by flabdablet at 9:32 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
If switching on your high-draw appliance doesn't cause a standing voltage depression at least as deep as the momentary ones that your printer is causing, then your printer's fuser is drawing simply insane amounts of power at startup and might well be faulty.
On the other hand, if it does depress the supply voltage to about the same extent the printer spikes do, you've got a nice controllable diagnostic tool that's going to be much easier to use to track down exactly where the load-induced drop is coming from than a printer that spikes its current draw whenever it feels like it.
posted by flabdablet at 9:32 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
nthing the 'hire an electrician' idea. The combination of old house, lights flickering when appliances kick in, and other things would indicate to me (NOT an electrician, but a former data center employee) that the printer is drawing most of the power for the circuit it is on. I also agree with someone above that if you are overloading the wires you have a potential fire hazard.
You may end up spending a chunk of change bringing wiring up to code and/or adding a dedicated circuit for your computer setup (including the paper) but that will be cheaper by far than a house fire.
posted by TimHare at 10:12 PM on December 31, 2024
You may end up spending a chunk of change bringing wiring up to code and/or adding a dedicated circuit for your computer setup (including the paper) but that will be cheaper by far than a house fire.
posted by TimHare at 10:12 PM on December 31, 2024
nth-ing the the electrician idea myself. The printer shouldn't be drawing THAT much power just to keep the fuser going, IMHO. I'd suspect the internal circuits to be problematic, and only an electrician can get to the bottom of this properly. How to solve it... you can decide how to deal with it when you get the full data.
posted by kschang at 10:24 PM on December 31, 2024
posted by kschang at 10:24 PM on December 31, 2024
SegFaultCoreDump: I'd call somebody to look at the system. A 10v drop is not normal.
Look around for an electrician who's got a recording voltage monitor, and ask them for a check of your wiring. Just the displays on the UPS and power conditioner already show _a_ significant drop (and an analog meter will react faster to a drop but it will still lag and not give an exact reading either), a recording monitor will show how deep the sag is and for how long. Plugging the monitor into other outlets elsewhere in the house while the printer is on and doing its 35 second thing will show if the drop extends to other outlets and possibly circuits. If the voltage drop occurs only on the spur to the office and maybe one or two sockets nearby, it's a wiring issue. With an entire circuit sagging it's a fuse box problem or a wiring issue directly downstream of it, and if the entire house jitters get your supplier involved.
posted by Stoneshop at 4:18 AM on January 1 [2 favorites]
Look around for an electrician who's got a recording voltage monitor, and ask them for a check of your wiring. Just the displays on the UPS and power conditioner already show _a_ significant drop (and an analog meter will react faster to a drop but it will still lag and not give an exact reading either), a recording monitor will show how deep the sag is and for how long. Plugging the monitor into other outlets elsewhere in the house while the printer is on and doing its 35 second thing will show if the drop extends to other outlets and possibly circuits. If the voltage drop occurs only on the spur to the office and maybe one or two sockets nearby, it's a wiring issue. With an entire circuit sagging it's a fuse box problem or a wiring issue directly downstream of it, and if the entire house jitters get your supplier involved.
posted by Stoneshop at 4:18 AM on January 1 [2 favorites]
a recording monitor will show how deep the sag is and for how long
So will any kind of multimeter, if you can manage to bring on a similar drop using something like a heater that draws roughly the same order of heavy current but consistently instead of only momentarily.
You need to stop thinking of this issue as being about a transient, which it is but really only incidentally, and more as the inability of your house to supply large currents to that outlet without severe voltage sag.
As SegFaultCoreDump says, ten volts of drop at any outlet supplying a current it's theoretically rated for is Not Good.
posted by flabdablet at 5:49 AM on January 1 [2 favorites]
So will any kind of multimeter, if you can manage to bring on a similar drop using something like a heater that draws roughly the same order of heavy current but consistently instead of only momentarily.
You need to stop thinking of this issue as being about a transient, which it is but really only incidentally, and more as the inability of your house to supply large currents to that outlet without severe voltage sag.
As SegFaultCoreDump says, ten volts of drop at any outlet supplying a current it's theoretically rated for is Not Good.
posted by flabdablet at 5:49 AM on January 1 [2 favorites]
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posted by number9dream at 12:22 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]