My laser printer (Brother HL-3170CDW) uses about 7 watts in “sleep mode”, so I don’t even bother to turn it off. While printing it runs about 500 watts (measured on my Kill-a-watt…Sense hasn’t found it). While on “standby”, between jobs and before it goes to sleep, it runs about 55 watts, keeping the fuser warm I’d guess.
700 seems really high if it was just sitting there, but behavior during a paper outage is certainly device dependent.
So, Sense found a hidden power drain problem for Phil, cool!
How did I not think of the fascinating energy signature of a printer! Possibly because Sense hasn’t ID’d it and I print infrequently.
So, I just quickly migrated my printers onto a TP-link Kasa HS300 so I can look at the curves and am amazed at the peaks. Mine, a Brother HL-5470DW, actually spikes at what could even trip a 15A circuit and the 1875W HS300 but is brief enough to not cause problems.
First peaks are printer power-up and following 3 are single page prints.
I have a second Sense that I use for testing that I’m going to temporarily put on the printer alone and try and grab some more details.
I don’t see such detail on my Kill-a-Watt of course, and Sense just lumps the printers in “Other”. These are fascinating wave forms…who would have thought? Thanks.
