Horrible office equipment

[Cariboocoot]

My wife has a Brother DCP-7065DN laser printer-scanner. She has insisted on using it at the cabin. The peak current is 7.69 Amps (@ 117 Volts). It sits there sucking down 5 Watts while "off" (standby mode). Running, it chews through 850+ Watts. It's as bad as the water pump. It's the only thing we have that actually makes the inverter buzz! That includes the septic pump (1 HP).

The ironic part is that it has an "Energy Star" label.

[BB.]

Yea, laser printers have the "fuser" that melts the toner to the paper. You want that first page fast, either a big heater for fast warm-up or leave the heater on between print jobs...

On the other hand, a good quality laser printer is just so much more reliable/less cost to print vs ink jet. I have problems with ink jet's plugging up if I only print a few pages every week or month).

My wife was getting to the point of wanting to buy a color laser printer (she does like to print color at times). Found a copy center a few blocks away that will print color for something like $0.60 per page. So far, a much better solution.

I put a power bar on my two laser printers (and old stereo) even though I am on grid--It all adds up.

My washer/drier (natural gas), use about 9 watts on standby--Which works out to about 1/2 the total power usage in a week of washing.

-Bill

[Vic]

My piece of HORRIBLE office eq is an Hp LaserJet 2055DN.

Had printed 28 pages over 15 months. Went to print some imporant TAX forms, had to be in the mail by the folowing day.

This HORRIBLE POS would not even power up (in order to waste power). This "Printer" cost about $15.00 per page to operate.

Historically have had very good luck with Apple Laserwriters and even the HPs when they were Canon Engines. Now these POS Chineese jobs must have a warranty timer inside ... Wish the HP was still available to waste some power. YMMV, Vic

[BB.]

Have a low end Brother laser (20,000-30,000+ pages through it) and a Cannon printer/copier (used to use it a fair amount). Both have been rock solid. I even refill the Brother Toner cartridge myself (can refill once or twice before needing a new one--last longer than the company I bought the refill toner from ).

HP was alway a hit and miss... 20+ years ago, had and HP-4 laser printer that lasted all of a year or so with not too much printing.

-Bill

[RandomJoe]

I have a Brother laser printer - bought it October 2003, and STILL on the original toner cartridge! (No, I don't print much.) It definitely was a better deal than ink jets! I also had the things clogging up - nearly every time between (monthly) printings.

I don't run it on the inverter. (Heck, it's only on for about 10 minutes a month! )

I think my "worst office equipment" is the computers. Almost all Apple, and whether it's something with Apple's power supplies or if I'd have this problem with any computer PSU I don't know. Thanks to all that capacitive loading the current draw is nice and spiky. The inverter handles it fine, but on occasion even CFLs will flicker/pulse! Most of my LED bulbs seem to be immune, but a couple (of a different style) do have a faint flicker as well.

If I get enough load going, the problem goes away. It's when I have nothing else on, except the 2-3 computers that stay on 24x7 and I turn on one or two lights. Annoying!

[n3qik]

I just print everything at work.

[ywhic]

I've done ok with Epson brand color inkjet printers..

The older Epson CX3200 uses 0.3 watts when off, yet plugged in..

Power it on and it goes upto 23 watts then settles in at 13 watts just waiting.

Goes to 15 watts in scanner mode when scanning a page..