Phaser 8400 and a UPS?

[John]

Looking for some feedback on this. We just bought a Phaser 8400 and are
considering whether or not to add a UPS. We normally do not have daytime
problems with power, but have had occasional (once every week or so) power
losses for short periods of time (usually less than 5 seconds).

The printer would normally be in sleep (power-saving) mode, during these
outages and would therefore be at its minimum power draw.

Xerox says the following: "Note: Xerox does not recommend for or against the
use ofUninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) with Xerox/Tektronix printers. As
a service to our customers, however, we can provide the printer's power
requirements and UPS ratings that will provide basic protection. If more
than a few minutes of power is needed, the UPS ratings must be increased
accordingly - please check with your UPS manufacturer."

Xerox references the following usage: Printing watts: 220, Additional warmup
watts: 800, Wall power req'd watts: 1200, VA rating: 1690.

I expect that if we put a smaller UPS on it, we could protect against
nighttime outages, but would lose the printer mid-job if it was active
during the day. Then again, if we don't use a UPS at all, then we never have
backup protection.

Maybe a decent surge protector is just our best option?

Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

 

[Bennett Price]

Looking for some feedback on this. We just bought a Phaser 8400 and are
considering whether or not to add a UPS. We normally do not have daytime
problems with power, but have had occasional (once every week or so) power
losses for short periods of time (usually less than 5 seconds).

The printer would normally be in sleep (power-saving) mode, during these
outages and would therefore be at its minimum power draw.

Xerox says the following: "Note: Xerox does not recommend for or against the
use ofUninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) with Xerox/Tektronix printers. As
a service to our customers, however, we can provide the printer's power
requirements and UPS ratings that will provide basic protection. If more
than a few minutes of power is needed, the UPS ratings must be increased
accordingly - please check with your UPS manufacturer."

Xerox references the following usage: Printing watts: 220, Additional warmup
watts: 800, Wall power req'd watts: 1200, VA rating: 1690.

I expect that if we put a smaller UPS on it, we could protect against
nighttime outages, but would lose the printer mid-job if it was active
during the day. Then again, if we don't use a UPS at all, then we never have
backup protection.

Maybe a decent surge protector is just our best option?

Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

Why bother to protect it at all? Does something bad happen if it loses
power and must reset itself (besides, perhaps, having to resubmit a
print job)? You may need a 12KW UPS so that the printer can turn itself
on; a smaller one may shut itself down on overload when you first power
up the printer.

 

[Bill]

Looking for some feedback on this. We just bought a Phaser 8400 and are
considering whether or not to add a UPS. We normally do not have daytime
problems with power, but have had occasional (once every week or so) power
losses for short periods of time (usually less than 5 seconds).

I wouldn't put a laser printer on a typical UPS, the power draw during
warm up is way too high. It'll just trip the overload protection.

Xerox references the following usage: Printing watts: 220, Additional warmup
watts: 800, Wall power req'd watts: 1200, VA rating: 1690.

That's a big draw, about 3-4x more than many typical UPS'.

What you would need is a UPS designed to keep a network system up and
running - at least 2200va rating to ensure it can power both the printer
and computer without tripping the overload circuit.

To give you some idea, my P4 2.0GHz computer and 19" monitor draws a max
of about 325va for both items, or about 1/3 the rating on my UPS.

I expect that if we put a smaller UPS on it, we could protect against
nighttime outages, but would lose the printer mid-job if it was active
during the day.
Correct.

Then again, if we don't use a UPS at all, then we never have
backup protection.

You can get a UPS to backup your computer only - a 500va unit will
suffice for a single workstation during brief power outages. Worse case
scenario is that you'd have to re-print the document.

 

[Hecate]

Looking for some feedback on this. We just bought a Phaser 8400 and are
considering whether or not to add a UPS. We normally do not have daytime
problems with power, but have had occasional (once every week or so) power
losses for short periods of time (usually less than 5 seconds).

The printer would normally be in sleep (power-saving) mode, during these
outages and would therefore be at its minimum power draw.

Xerox says the following: "Note: Xerox does not recommend for or against the
use ofUninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) with Xerox/Tektronix printers. As
a service to our customers, however, we can provide the printer's power
requirements and UPS ratings that will provide basic protection. If more
than a few minutes of power is needed, the UPS ratings must be increased
accordingly - please check with your UPS manufacturer."

Xerox references the following usage: Printing watts: 220, Additional warmup
watts: 800, Wall power req'd watts: 1200, VA rating: 1690.

I expect that if we put a smaller UPS on it, we could protect against
nighttime outages, but would lose the printer mid-job if it was active
during the day. Then again, if we don't use a UPS at all, then we never have
backup protection.

Maybe a decent surge protector is just our best option?

Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

If you check out the APC web site you'll see that they don't
recommend, in fact positively say you shouldn't, connect a printer to
an UPS. Yes, you can connect it to the surge suppressor circuit, but
not the UPS.

 

[Roger]

My Xerox Phaser 8400 has restarted after a few 10 second power failures and
not (apparently) wasted any ink. I did not put a UPS on it because to avoid
"problems" (ie burning out the UPS) you'd need a very big and expensive one.
I suspect the ink purge only occurs after the ink has cooled below a certain
temperature. I leave it on all the time. (I did plug it into a surge
suppressor... that, I would highly recommend for everything including your
TiVo box! Don't forget the cable and phone lines!!!)

I have cursed FPL for the couple of outages (we're talking several minutes)
that did use up ink... apparently, though, it just uses the black ink which
is cheaper. And somehow I've accumulated a ton of that stuff.

You may want to call the Xerox tech support line and ask what amount of time
would generate the costly "ink purge", and what happens. (Note: if the front
line folks can't answer or seem to be giving a not too good canned answer,
ask for the next tier of support!)

In terms of power use, this printer has a pretty darn smart wake up cycle
that saves power, and brings itself out of standby according to your use
pattern or a set schedule. Mine, without me doing anything, seems to come
out of standby every weekday at 8am.

I personally would not suggest shutting off any PC equipment, most PCs,
monitors, and peripherals made in the last 10 years have power save features
that allow you to get going quickly. For my needs, having a UPS on just the
PC tends to keep it from power cycling when a random blip happens, nothing
more. And you need the PC up and running at 2am when your virus scanner
wants to check every file!

(Just keep your firewall running 24x7 too if you're on DSL!)

Roger

 

[Timothy Lee]

Maybe a decent surge protector is just our best option?

For my 8200 in six months we have had two, maybe three power
fluctuations, one of which I have saved the printer from restarting with
a surge protector. If you are getting many I suppose it might be worth
considering to keep it up, I presume you put it into sleep/standby mode
at night.

 

[Huey]

Generally my response to this has been when asked, when I was on the 2nd
level support, that anything over 5-10 seconds will register a cool down on
the printhead. It will then cycle through the ink (about 20-30 pages worth)
to make sure that no ink has clogged the jets in the print head.

Generally, when I had people reboot their unit, I have them click it off,
then on and no purge would happen.

That is my canned response.