Most UPS's warn against connection to a laser printer. The new laser
printer sucks up more power than the old so it can warm up faster and get
the first page out faster. That was true of my Xerox, Brother, and Minolta
laser printers. All dimmed the lights. Interestingly, my 1 year old Epson
color laser multifunction machine (yes it is color and laser) does not cause
the same dimming.


"NetKev" wrote in message
oups.com...
I got a multi-function laser printer for my home office. It replaced
an old laser printer that I had. This new printer causes the lights
to dim in the whole house when I print. While it prints, the lights
rhythmicly dim. This stops once the printer goes to sleep. My old
printer never did that. I ended up buying a new laser printer (for
unrelated reasons) and it does the same thing(if not worse).

I tried plugging it into different outlets without a difference. This
latest printer(Dell 1815dn) pulls 450 watts while printing. Here's
the spec sheet if you're interested:
http://www.dell.com/downloads/global...ron/1815dn.pdf

Anyways, this bugs the heck out of me and my wife. Especially when my
wife prints out large pdfs while I'm reading I read about this
phenomenon on the group and know that it's common...

This house we're renting was built in the 1950s and so I'm sure it
doesn't have the greatest electrical service.

But my question is how to fix it. Since we're renting I don't want to
make any drastic electrical system changes(cant actually). I was
thinking a UPS would work or maybe a power conditioner since I'm
assuming that the draw from the printing is so high that the rest of
the appliances are being starved. If a UPS were in the mix to provide
this extra power then the rest of the appliances wouldn't have a
problem.

If my solution theory is correct, any idea what size UPS I will need?
I'm hoping I don't have to spend a lot of money for it but who knows.

Thanks for your help/suggestions/pointers
-Kevin