Laser print switched on 24/7

Can someone please confirm for my wife that leaving a Lexmark networked colour laser printer powered on in sleep mode (aka Eco-mode) 24/7 actually uses less power than switching it on and off as needed for printing, and also that switching on and off uses and wastes considerable amounts of toner, which is very expensive.

Finally, could you also confirm that leaving a modern laser printer on 24/7 in sleep mode is a minimal fire risk (notwithstanding dodgy electrics) and that it doesn't generate heat except when it wakes up and is printing.

Thanks in advance.

Anonymous

there is no fire risk leaving electronics on 24/7 bar that of dodgy electronics or component failure.

I found power numbers for a fairly heavy duty office laser :-

Power consumption (standby) 150 W
Power consumption (PowerSave) 25 W

but a consumer one would be less. If I could find my power meter I would test it.

In reply to a post by yarwell:

but a consumer one would be less.

The spec for my Samsung says

• Average operating mode: Less than 350 W
• Ready mode: Less than 80 W
• Power Save mode: Less than 10 W
• Power off mode: 0 W

My way of working is to power the printer on each day the first time I need to use it then power it off when I go to bed. But then again I can go weeks without needing to print anything.

I do the same for my hi-fi system.

It's a hard one to call, though I'd agree with Phil about the fire risk.

I don't see why a laser printer should use more toner on start-up (unless it's set to automatically print a test page), it's not like inkjets which often go through a head-cleaning exercise.

Power- it will use less power if it's switched off, but the surges and thermal variations at switch-on are likely to accelerate its demise (though electronics are a lot better than they used to be in this regard). So you have to balance frequency of replacement with the (low) power consumption in sleep mode.

I leave mine on, but I don't think I could give a cast-iron justification for either scheme.

Which isn't what you wanted to hear, sorry about that

In reply to a post by billford:

.... but the surges and thermal variations at switch-on are likely to accelerate its demise.

Will it not have the same surges and thermal variations when it comes out of sleep mode?

In reply to a post by Sandgrounder:

Will it not have the same surges and thermal variations when it comes out of sleep mode?

They'll still occur, but not as extreme.

Even in sleep mode it will be drawing some power (otherwise it wouldn't be able to detect whatever wakes it up), so it'll be slightly warm.¹

More to the point, (much of) the power supply will still be operating so capacitors etc will still be at their normal operating voltage.


¹ Some years ago my cat used to sleep on my sleeping LaserJet 4, it liked the slight warmth... cat fur and fuser rollers don't mix, I had to cobble up an anti-cat guard

Edited by billford (Thu 07-Jul-11 14:43:36)