Question on Konica/Minolta 1350W Laser Printer

  • Thread starter Thread starter geezer
  • Start date Start date
You'll probably find it on the label plate somewhere near the powe
cord or socket

If your light blinks obviously it's creating a voltage drop across th
wiring back to the fuse box

I remember well, a couple of years ago our house lights looked like
flipping disco every time we boiled the kettle....! I told th
utility guy the prioblem was with the wiring out in the street - i
took them a year to get them to understand....! Finally the dug th
street up and laid a new cable, if only they had listened

I would estimate the power taken would be about 15 Watts in standb
and maybe around 250 Watts printing. If you know the voltage an
the current consumption then you can work the Wattage out

Voltage x Current in Amps = power in Watts, for example 115v, 3 amp
the power consumption would be 345 Watts

The blinking could be the wiring, loose fuses, faulty circuit breaker
causing the voltage to drop when you apply a modest load, like
electric fire, a kettle, a laser printer with the heater tha
diffuses the toner or maybe even a power drill or a vacuum cleaner

You'll probably find that 'light' loads like an inkjet printer,
small radio will have no effect

For your peace of mind it would be better to get this checked out t
reduce the risk of fire through to the wiring or loose contac
heating up and igniting

Dav
 
Konica responded to my email query on the subject just now thus:

Conventional Halogen fusing type Laser printers draw large amounts of
current which cause voltage drops across the circuit during the fusing
process. This is the reason you are noticing your lights are blinking.
This may occur during the printing process or while the printer is at
idle.


The printer does go in a power save mode after 15 minutes of non use.
There is no way to disable or change the time for the energy saver
mode on the printer.

Thanks for your interest

G
 
Conventional Halogen fusing type Laser printers draw large amounts of
current which cause voltage drops across the circuit during the fusing
process. This is the reason you are noticing your lights are blinking.
This may occur during the printing process or while the printer is at
idle.
Click to expand...

Yep.. that's sums it up perfectly well. It's bad enough when you have
an always on laser that has a high current draw. Unfortunatly the only
resolution that is practical to the end user is find a circuit that
either isn't so loaded or get an extention cord from one that is. A
handy dandy circuit tracer is really your best option, otherwise
jacking into another outlet is not a bad idea either so long as you are
postive the polarity is the same. I had one lovely experence where I
was hooking up a pc and monitor to two different circuits, one with
reverse polarity which resulted in the ceiling fan exploding.. now I
keep a polarity checker in my bag.

The non-practical solution is to rewire from your breaker box which is
no fun and not something your average joe feels comfortable doing.
 
I don't know, and it may vary depending upon what it's doing at the time.

However, if it causes your lights to dim or blink, chances are you have
an unbalanced load in your fuse/circuit breaker box. If you can, try to
place the printer on an outlet on the other "side" of the box, if you
live in a home. You may have less options in an apartment.


Art
 
geezer said:
Konica responded to my email query on the subject just now thus:

Conventional Halogen fusing type Laser printers draw large amounts of
current which cause voltage drops across the circuit during the fusing
process. This is the reason you are noticing your lights are blinking.
This may occur during the printing process or while the printer is at
idle.
Click to expand...

Geezer-

When I recently had a problem with blinking lights, It turned out that
there was a loose connection in the neutral wire where it connects inside
my outdoor power box. The other end of the neutral wire connects to the
center of a 240 Volt transformer that feeds several houses in the
neighborhood. This allows use of either the entire 240 Volts, or separate
use of 120 Volts on each side of the transformer.

In my case, lights would get unusually bright for a moment, not dim. A
Voltmeter showed the Voltage occasionally exceeding 140 Volts.

After the connection was tightened, Voltage has been rock-solid. A 900
Watt toaster only causes a two or three Volt drop in voltage. I
discovered that two nearby 120 Volt outlets were connected to opposite
sides of the 240 Volt incoming line. When the toaster caused the small
drop, there was small rise on the other outlet, so the drop on the 240
Volt total was barely detectable.

Balancing the load on both sides of the 240 Volts (120-0-120) isn't always
practical, and shouldn't be needed unless you have heavy equipment. If
you notice a significant dimming of your lights with only a 900 Watt load,
you might have a serious problem. The other side of the line might be
rising, so that damage could occur to other equipment due to over-Voltage.

Fred
 
I assume you don't really mean they blink, but they dim momentarily? Yes,
I've noticed that too. And when I looked at the electrical specs I could
understand why.

http://printer.konicaminolta.com/products/monochrome/pp1350w/tech.asp#electrical

Up to 900 watts maximum. I guess that's why the lights dim. It's probably
for bringing the printer quickly to operating temperature, and 400 watts
once it gets into steady printing.

900 watts is quite a bit for a 120 v. house circuit, and if your wiring is
old, probably not up to today's standards. I know my wiring is close to 50
years old.
 
To determine the MAXIMUM amount of power that can be drawn on AN
circuit is to take a note of the supply voltage and the fuse ratin
that the circuit uses, for example thus-

If the line voltage is 115V and the fuse in a particular wiring o
circuit is 5 Amps then the maximum amount of power that can be draw
is -

Voltage x Current in Amperes thus, 115 x 5 = 575 Watts, as mentione
previously it could be caused by faulty wiring, loose connections o
even tarnished connections on the fuse or circuit breaker

Any circuit or connections that causes the lights to blink is creatin
a voltage drop, which creates a resistive connection which in turn i
capable of generating heat

It really is advisable to get to the bottom of this to prevent an
possibility of a fire hazard, heat can melt the wiring insulation..

Another cause, usually in older buildings is that the electrica
wiring is not capable of carrying an appreciable amount of power bu
are adequate for lighting

And to work out the current when the voltage and wattage is given a
in some appliances it's simply-

Wattage divided by voltage = currant in Amps

Dav
 
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