Gang,
You must have old wiring, because no way 5A draw would cause lights to flicker with a decent 15A line.
You must have old wiring, because no way 5A draw would cause lights to flicker with a decent 15A line.
"Audiophile" Printer - But Interfering with AC?
I recently purchased a Samsung 1630, which is a consumer grade monochrome laser jet printer.
What might be of interest to other audiophiles is that this printer is very COOL.
Its performance is supposedly very good, but Samsung has made a big effort to put it in a sleek and stylish case - a welcome change from cheap, beige plastic and at last, a printer which doesnt detract from my listening room.
But here is the weird problem: everytime I go to print, it feels as if I am trying to fire up a nuclear power station: the lights dim, my DAC connection is temporarily knocked out, and my Audio Research SP-11 goes into LED blinking, warm up mode as if I just turned it on.
Does anyone have any idea why this might be happening? Should the stand by mode for a relatively small, monochrome laserjet printer draw that much current? Will my next electrical bill be....shocking?
As with all of my electrical toys, I would rather leave it on 24/7 for convenience.
Thank you for any thoughts.
13 responses Add your response
Strike the power of all laser printers to heat the fossil. It is very small at the standpoint so you only see the problem while printing. Try searching the different 'step' plugin printer. Or simply take help HP Support Assistant to get rid of this. |
Your printer problem intrigued me so I measured the current draw of my HP. At power up, after being off for 12 hours, the peak current was slightly higher than 5 amps. This was the steady state current when printing. When not printing it dropped to about an amp. This is a rather large home use printer. I would not expect your printer to have a significanlty higher current draw. Compare this with an inrush current of 50 amps for my amplifier, with an operting current at my listening levels of around 5 amps. Similarly, a power on current draw of 25 amps for a vacuum cleaner and then an operating current of 10 amps. The vacuum cleaner and the amplifier do cause a very short momentary dimming of the lights at power up but the printer does not. This may put things in perspective. Hope it helps. Let us know what you find and how you solve your current situation. |
I have an HP laser printer on the same circuit as my audio system and have never experienced dimming of lights or any other noticiable effect. Nor have I ever seen this happen in any other setting. Your printer should not draw that much current. You may want to tighten your connections at the panel and at the outlets - sounds like you have a high resistance in the path feeding power, most likely in the path to the printer. If that does not prove to be the case and if the time frame allows for it, I would be very tempted to exchange the printer. |
Cwlondon You shouldnt add $200 to your electric bill. Just remember everytime the fuser has to re-heat itself it will draw a lot of current. Try to save all your printing to 1 or 2 times a day. Once the fuser is warmed up the current draw drops significantly. When you do the sub-panel make sure you 'balance' the current draw for each phase as best that can be done taking into consideration all the appliances you have and may get. |
So the bad news is when I am printing it might continue to disrupt my DAC and preamp? But the good news is that standby mode shouldn't give me a $200 a month electrical bill? Xtil6 I would like to add a sub panel and dedicated line etc to this room but havent yet had the chance. In the meantime, I have way too many appliances, given the limited wiring in our house. Thank you both for ideas so far... |
