Do you leave your printer turned on all the time, 24/7?

Nifty

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I've heard a lot of reasons why people leave their printers on 24/7 and am wondering if any of you do it?

Here are some of the reasons why I've heard to leave a printer on all the time:
1) Less wear and tear on the printer. When it is left on you don't have as many startup / shutdown cycles run.
2) Fewer cleaning cycles during printer startup equates to less ink consumption and (depending on the printer) less chance of the dreaded "waste tank full" error message.


Here are some of the reasons why I've though to turn my printer off:
1) Conserves power.
2) I don't mind loosing ink during a few more cleaning cycles. As far as I'm concerned cleaning cycles are a good thing.

I leave my computer on for about 14 hours a day and have my printer shut down after 30 mins. of no use.

What do you do?
 

Grandad35

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Nifty-stuff - I always leave my printer turned on for the reasons you mentioned. I found the power consumption for the European version of my printer (i9900/i9950) at (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...m9kdWN0X3NwZWNpZmljYXRpb25z&product_uid=63331), and they state that it uses 1.8 watts in sleep/standby mode and 28 watts while in operational mode. 28 watts = 20 kW-hr per month in full operational mode - about the same as two "night lights".

When everything is working normally (good carts, no carts are changed, etc.) I very seldom have to run extra cleaning cycles and suffer the loss of ink. The printer does seem to keep track of how long it has been idle, as it will sometimes run an unusual cycle before starting to print. I think that I have even heard it do this when there is no printing activity.
 

Nifty

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Via Canon support:

There is not a specific recommendation for this, but most users would
powering the printer off when not needed. It should be noted that when
powered on and off, it is powered off, it is always being powered off
using the POWER button or switch on the printer versus a power strip or
other external source. This allows the printer properly shut and power
down as opposed to cutting the electrical power. This is not really
recommended for any electrical device if it has a POWER button.

Power consumption for i560:
Standby: Approximately 0.7W
Printing: Approximately 24

Power consumption for i860:
Standby: Approx. 0.7 W
Printing: Approx. 25 W


Well, if this baby only uses .7 watts then at $0.20 a kilowatt hour that is less than half a penny a day right? If all that is being used is the power LED and some other minor stuff, then I can imagine it only using .7 watts.
 

Nifty

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COUGH COUGH.... I just got back from under / behind my dusty desk and moved my cables around to have my printer on 24/7. I guess I'll give this a try and see what happens.

Speaking of power consumption I've been thinking of designing a meter to measure power drain on devices. Something that I could just plug the device into directly to measure the current... something like this:

power_consumption_meter.gif


I'm sure there is something like this already out there, but with a free extension cord and a multimeter I already have I could make my own! :)
 

Pixmaker

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Sure...that's a logical way to do the measurement. However...

there are some nifty li'l adapters to many multimeters with standard male and female plugs on them that allow you to insert them directly into the line cord. Then you plug your meter into the adapter and read the current. Simple! Remember, though, that a power consumption of 0.7 Watts amounts to only about 6 mA of current and 25 Watts = about 200 mA. Not much!

Best part is that it avoids that coughing and sneezing that results from disturbing all that well-settled dust. Boy, I HATE to get behind everything to rearrange any cables!
 

Scrubking

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I turn mines off. I already have a ton of other things sucking power so I don't want to add another one.

Also do all canon printers do a cleaning cycle everytime you start them up?
 

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