Sleep mode vs turn off laser printer - Brother HL-1440

I recently purchased a Brother HL-1440. My first laser printer. I
have always powered off all of my inkjet printers each night or when I
did not expect to use them for several hours. My thinking was that
the power down parked the print head/cartridges and kept them from
drying out.

According to the HL-1440 user guide the printer only uses 6 watts of
power during sleep mode and there is nothing to dry out. So should I
just leave it on or power off each night? Any harm to the printer
either way? Certainly for extended periods, days/weeks, I'd turn it
off and possible unplug it if I plan to be gone for an extended time.

--
BrZ

"Plan9" wrote in message
...
I recently purchased a Brother HL-1440. My first laser printer. I
have always powered off all of my inkjet printers each night or when I
did not expect to use them for several hours. My thinking was that
the power down parked the print head/cartridges and kept them from
drying out.

According to the HL-1440 user guide the printer only uses 6 watts of
power during sleep mode and there is nothing to dry out. So should I
just leave it on or power off each night? Any harm to the printer
either way? Certainly for extended periods, days/weeks, I'd turn it
off and possible unplug it if I plan to be gone for an extended time.

--
BrZ

Don't know about the 1440 but I have a trusty 10 year old HL-660. Does your
1440 have a power button, the 660 does not.

If there's no power button leave it on as you would either have to unplug it
or have it connected to a power strip. I know that cutting the power to my
660 would cause some unfavorable results (i.e., toner on back of several
pages) the next time I printed anything. This may not be the case with your
1440, but just the same, if the manual recommends so, leave it on.

David

The HL-1440 is a LASER printer not inkjet


"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Plan9 wrote:

I recently purchased a Brother HL-1440. My first laser printer. I
have always powered off all of my inkjet printers each night or when I
did not expect to use them for several hours. My thinking was that
the power down parked the print head/cartridges and kept them from
drying out.

You mean you never actually read the owner's manuals for the inkjet
printrs in question? You just decided that you must know better based
on your hunches, therefore why bother with reading the manufacturer's
specifications.

There's a lot of "my thinking was..." going on in the world, and that's
how old wives' tales come about. Then you get to have kids, and you
pass your "wisdom" on to your kids, then they turn out dumb as stumps as
well.



According to the HL-1440 user guide the printer only uses 6 watts of
power during sleep mode and there is nothing to dry out.

That's correct.



So should I
just leave it on or power off each night? Any harm to the printer
either way?

What does the manual say?

You have a TV and a VCR, right? Do you power those off? By power off,
I mean do you actually cut ALL power from going to those devices when
you're not using them?

No, you don't. When you hit the power button, they go to sleep. Their
internal circuitry is still alive and consuming power; they're keeping
time, channel memories, etc, and they're listening for a remote control
or internal timer code to tell them to turn on the rest of the
circuitry, fire up the tube, start the tape rolling, etc.

Look at your TV and VCR manuals, and see how much power they consume
when "off".

So you don't actually turn OFF your TV and VCR when you're not using
them, right? You don't go and hit a power strip switch or anything, or
some master power button (sometimes called a "vacation" button) on the
TV, right?

The laser printer is no different. When sleeping it's powered all the
way down except for the same bare minimum current required to keep the
circuitry alive that looks for a print job coming in. When a print job
comes in, the rest of the machine powers up and prints the job. Then it
goes back to sleep again after a few minutes.

Modern HP printers don't even have an on/off switch. The most they ever
power down is to sleep mode--just like the most your VCR ever powers
down is sleep mode. Some current is ALWAYS going through the thing.

For extended absences, unplug the thing. Otherwise, leave it plugged in
and let its internal circuitry decide when to turn the fuser and motors
on and when to leave them off.

An actual power switch isn't needed nowadays, and is overkill.

Leave it on, the power eating parts like the motors and fuser shut off in
sleep and it even looks like it's off. DO NOT put a laser printer on a UPS
(battery backup) not put it on a manual printer switch (although the 1440 is
USB so you have flexibility)


"Plan9" wrote in message
...
I recently purchased a Brother HL-1440. My first laser printer. I
have always powered off all of my inkjet printers each night or when I
did not expect to use them for several hours. My thinking was that
the power down parked the print head/cartridges and kept them from
drying out.

According to the HL-1440 user guide the printer only uses 6 watts of
power during sleep mode and there is nothing to dry out. So should I
just leave it on or power off each night? Any harm to the printer
either way? Certainly for extended periods, days/weeks, I'd turn it
off and possible unplug it if I plan to be gone for an extended time.

--
BrZ

"Russ Blakeman" wrote in comp.periphs.printers:
DO NOT put a laser printer on a UPS battery backup)

Why not?

[Please don't quote upside down, and please do trim quotes; see
http://web.presby.edu/~nnqadmin/nnq/nquote.html.]

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
"You want an intelligent conversation? Do what I do: talk to
yourself. It's the only way." -- /Torch Song Trilogy/

In article , Stan Brown wrote:
"Russ Blakeman" wrote in comp.periphs.printers:
DO NOT put a laser printer on a UPS battery backup)

Why not?

Because it has high power drainage when printing, and if generally
considered bad (like the coffee machine). The output ports
of most UPS do not protect one device from sending spikes to
the others.

If you want it on UPS, give it its own.

--
Povl H. Pedersen - (yes - it works)
Fastnet - IP telefoni: 5 kr/md Se http://www.misumi.dk

"Povl H. Pedersen" wrote in
comp.periphs.printers:
In article , Stan Brown wrote:
"Russ Blakeman" wrote in comp.periphs.printers:
DO NOT put a laser printer on a UPS battery backup)

Why not?

Because it has high power drainage when printing, and if generally
considered bad (like the coffee machine). The output ports
of most UPS do not protect one device from sending spikes to
the others.

Gotcha; thanks.

My UPS has two groups of ports -- one group that simply conditions
output power, and one group that conditions power and provides power
when there's none coming from the wall. I have my printer in the
first group and all teh rest in the second group. There's been no
sign of the printer's power surge affecting any other device -- no
screen flicker, for instance.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
"You want an intelligent conversation? Do what I do: talk to
yourself. It's the only way." -- /Torch Song Trilogy/

Actually he has it wrong. If a UPS connects to a wall
receptacle, then the "conditioned" outlets have the same
protection as the other outlet on that wall receptacle.
Protectors do not sit between the noise and the appliance.
They are called shunt mode protector for very good reason.
The protector connects to AC mains as if it was another light
bulb. The AC mains connects directly to every appliance and
to the protector circuit equally.

There is a dirty little secret about typical plug-in UPSes
they would rather not discuss. For 120 VAC, the UPS output is
often very dirty electricity when in battery backup mode. For
example, this UPS outputs two 200 volt square waves with a 270
spike between those square waves when lightly loaded in
battery backup mode. That 270 volt spike and 200 volt square
waves is totally irrelevant to electronics which are some of
the most resilient appliances in the house. But that same 200
volt square wave - also using deceptive expressions such as
modified sine wave - can be destructive to small electric
motors.

That is correct. The appliance often sees some of the
dirtiest electricity when UPS is in battery backup mode. No
problem because electronic power supplies are so resilient.
But UPSes in battery backup mode can output high harmonics
which is not good for small electric motors. So they simply
avoid the entire topic and recommend you not put printers no a
UPS output.

For the exact same reason, those UPS manufacturers also
recommend you not put a power strip protector on a UPS output.
Either the power strip protector is degraded or the UPS is
damaged.

Again there is no magic protection blocking the appliance
from AC mains spikes. When not in battery backup mode, the
appliance is connected directly to AC mains. There is no
magic filter between AC mains and appliance - except inside
the appliance. That is correct. Any protection that works
adjacent to the electronic appliance is already inside that
appliance. Even think that UPS conditions power. Any
conditioning is so trivial as to be irrelevant. That UPS
serves one purpose - to protect data from power loss. In
which case there is no advantage to connecting a printer to
the UPS.

Stan Brown wrote:
Gotcha; thanks.

My UPS has two groups of ports -- one group that simply conditions
output power, and one group that conditions power and provides power
when there's none coming from the wall. I have my printer in the
first group and all teh rest in the second group. There's been no
sign of the printer's power surge affecting any other device -- no
screen flicker, for instance.

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

In article ,
Plan9 wrote:


I recently purchased a Brother HL-1440. My first laser printer. I
have always powered off all of my inkjet printers each night or when I
did not expect to use them for several hours. My thinking was that
the power down parked the print head/cartridges and kept them from
drying out.


You mean you never actually read the owner's manuals for the inkjet
printrs in question? You just decided that you must know better based
on your hunches, therefore why bother with reading the manufacturer's
specifications.

There's a lot of "my thinking was..." going on in the world, and that's
how old wives' tales come about. Then you get to have kids, and you
pass your "wisdom" on to your kids, then they turn out dumb as stumps as
well.


Well, aren't you just full of yourself.

Of course, you probably don't know a darn thing if it isn't in the
"manual" and obviously there was no manual that came with you that
explained common decency in dealing with another human being, or at
least I suppose that would be your excuse.

As it turns out, indeed most inkjet printers should be shut down when
not in use because they need proper shut down to allow the heads to park
and seal in the cleaning/parking station, so be it "dumb" luck, or good
intuition, the poster seems to have it correct. Further, some inkjet
printers still trickle a very small voltage through the circuits to keep
certain counter information in memory.


According to the HL-1440 user guide the printer only uses 6 watts of
power during sleep mode and there is nothing to dry out.

That's correct.


So should I
just leave it on or power off each night? Any harm to the printer
either way?


What does the manual say?

You have a TV and a VCR, right? Do you power those off? By power off,
I mean do you actually cut ALL power from going to those devices when
you're not using them?

No, you don't. When you hit the power button, they go to sleep. Their
internal circuitry is still alive and consuming power; they're keeping
time, channel memories, etc, and they're listening for a remote control
or internal timer code to tell them to turn on the rest of the
circuitry, fire up the tube, start the tape rolling, etc.

But they do still have a power button, and don't just "go to sleep"
after an elapsed time. And televisions and VCRs, should they turn on
due to a flaw in the IR circuits will likely just waste a bit of
electricity. (I have a VCR that will turn itself to "power on" mode if
strong sunlight hits the IR sensor under some situations). TV and VCRs
don't have a heater unit that is used to fuse toner in them. Further,
depending upon how long after last use the unit goes into sleep mode, it
could waste considerable electricity.


Look at your TV and VCR manuals, and see how much power they consume
when "off".

So you don't actually turn OFF your TV and VCR when you're not using
them, right? You don't go and hit a power strip switch or anything, or
some master power button (sometimes called a "vacation" button) on the
TV, right?


The laser printer is no different. When sleeping it's powered all the
way down except for the same bare minimum current required to keep the
circuitry alive that looks for a print job coming in. When a print job
comes in, the rest of the machine powers up and prints the job. Then it
goes back to sleep again after a few minutes.

There are a number of potential benefits to turning the unit off fully.
One, it obviously saves some minimal electricity, and if one had half
a dozen peripherals which each use 6 or 8 watts (printers, scanners,
etc) it could mount to a wasteful bit of power. Secondly, there have
been numerous design flaws over the years with laser printers which have
lead to fire risks and fires. Could the printer start up on its own due
to such a flaw, or a power glitch? Possibly. Power spikes can do more
damage to equipment which is in "sleep mode" than in the full power off
position. The thing may emmit enough RF interference to interfere with
other household devices. I have a CD player which keeps a trickle
voltage going through it, because it has a remote control.
Unfortunately, the design is such that it emits RF interference through
the house, so I have it on a power "bar" and turn it off there. I
really don't need the remote feature to open the CD drawer, after all, I
have to place a CD into it, so it's no great hardship and I wish it did
have a true off switch.

I won't get into an argument as to whether turning the power switch on
and off shorten component life or not, because it very much depends upon
the circuits. And indeed some peripherals need a certain current flow
to maintain memory values, so I agree the manual may be a good source of
information (if it goes into that much detail). But assuming the manual
trumps all other knowledge or information is potentially shortsighted.


Modern HP printers don't even have an on/off switch. The most they ever
power down is to sleep mode--just like the most your VCR ever powers
down is sleep mode. Some current is ALWAYS going through the thing.

For extended absences, unplug the thing. Otherwise, leave it plugged in
and let its internal circuitry decide when to turn the fuser and motors
on and when to leave them off.

An actual power switch isn't needed nowadays, and is overkill.


A power switch costs money to include and install, and today every
penny's savings, whether or not it has value in the design, becomes
secondary to the "bottom line". Personally, I like true power interrupt
switches, and nearly everything I own has them. I feel the benefit is I
am given a easier choice.

Art