Printer drawing too much power, Room lights flickering

[KrillBee]

The printer and the lights are on the same circuit in the house I live. My mom is hesitant about using this printer because while its on, the lights in the room flicker every 10 seconds or so. The lights are plugged into wall outlets.

Is there any way to fix this besides rewiring our house? For instance, would hooking up a UPS to the printer help any? My mom uses the printer for faxing and scanning, but she leaves it off the rest of the time and uses the older printer to print, because of this, lol.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Unless it's a monster UPS the laser will probably draw too much current for it to handle. Check the printer manaual for peak power load.

My Brother laser flickers the lights, it's annoying but harmless.

 

[Rike]

Originally posted by: KrillBee
The printer and the lights are on the same circuit in the house I live. My mom is hesitant about using this printer because while its on, the lights in the room flicker every 10 seconds or so. The lights are plugged into wall outlets.

Is there any way to fix this besides rewiring our house? For instance, would hooking up a UPS to the printer help any? My mom uses the printer for faxing and scanning, but she leaves it off the rest of the time and uses the older printer to print, because of this, lol.

I have the same problem at my house. I just turn the printer on when I need to use it and off when I don't. And Dave is right; laser printers don't play nice with UPSs and the flicker is harmless. No worries.

 

[ComputerWizKid]

If the house is yours IE not an apartment I would shut off the Circuit breaker or fuse and check any receptacles on the circuit the Laser printer is on for loose wires or back stabbed wires (The wires that are just shoved in to the back of a receptacle) as those are notorious for coming loose and causing a poor connection and cause heat and lights dimming as you described is normal when any high draw decice starts up but if the voltage drops alot and stays low then you have a poor or loose connection that needs to be checked out

 

[KrillBee]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Unless it's a monster UPS the laser will probably draw too much current for it to handle. Check the printer manaual for peak power load.

My Brother laser flickers the lights, it's annoying but harmless.

yep, the one here is a Brother printer as well. I figured it was harmless, but it bothers my mom, lol.

What if the light was hooked into the UPS? Would that stop the flickering?

Originally posted by: Rike

I have the same problem at my house. I just turn the printer on when I need to use it and off when I don't. And Dave is right; laser printers don't play nice with UPSs and the flicker is harmless. No worries.

yeah, we're just turning it on and off for now. she gets real annoyed by the flickering when its on though.

Originally posted by: ComputerWizKid
If the house is yours IE not an apartment I would shut off the Circuit breaker or fuse and check any receptacles on the circuit the Laser printer is on for loose wires or back stabbed wires (The wires that are just shoved in to the back of a receptacle) as those are notorious for coming loose and causing a poor connection and cause heat and lights dimming as you described is normal when any high draw decice starts up but if the voltage drops alot and stays low then you have a poor or loose connection that needs to be checked out

its our house. the lights dim only for a second and then they are okay again, so i dont think its loose wiring. it does it with every light in every outlet, not just in one spot.

 

[secretanchitman]

same thing happens to our room in the house as well. it dims when its turning on and while its about to print out something. its a brother mfc-8420 laser multifunction printer. excellent printer IMO.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Originally posted by: Rike

Originally posted by: KrillBee
The printer and the lights are on the same circuit in the house I live. My mom is hesitant about using this printer because while its on, the lights in the room flicker every 10 seconds or so. The lights are plugged into wall outlets.

Is there any way to fix this besides rewiring our house? For instance, would hooking up a UPS to the printer help any? My mom uses the printer for faxing and scanning, but she leaves it off the rest of the time and uses the older printer to print, because of this, lol.

I have the same problem at my house. I just turn the printer on when I need to use it and off when I don't. And Dave is right; laser printers don't play nice with UPSs and the flicker is harmless. No worries.

I use a Xerox WorkCentre 125f, plugged directly into the socket. it cause my lights to flicker, and the UPS my PC is hooked up to goes to battery power when i turn it on. It sees it as "electrical noise" and sometimes "blackout". without the UPS, i'm not sure how safe the PC would be...to me, the flicker is not harmless...as long as i have the UPS.

The wiring in my house is old and ******