Ok guys, here it goes. I have this junky little thermal printer in my patrol car that I use to print citations etc. I can use it to print exchange sheets for wreck reports and the like, but I really hate this printer and it takes forever.

Sooooooo, I went out and bought a laser printer for the car. It's a Brother HL5240D (Duplex Printing etc.) The specs say that the printer uses 6W in sleep mode, 24W on stanby and 675W when printing. I went out and bought an 800W Inverter but it's not enough to power the printer.

Do you guys think a 1200W inverter would do it?

 

Not that I'm any printer or electronics expert, but do we know that the inverter is, in fact, putting out it's rated capacity? Or that the printer actually works?

I think I'd check the obvious before spending yet more money that may not solve the problem anyway.

chaikwa.

 

Yea like chaikwa said, did you run the wires from the inverter right to battery with a heavy enough gauge wire? If not that thing will never put out 800W. Also do the specs say anything about startup wattage? That may be over 800w when it is trying to start up and thats what killing you.

 

Is your inverter a true sine-wave model or a modified sine-wave model? It is possible that if it is a modified sine-wave model the printer won't work with it.

~Rob

 

Jack,
Here is a post from a while ago:

Click here for the original thread

~Rob

 

Print citations? must be nice... all the tickets i always got were hand written and hard to read haha


sorry im not help so heres a bump

 

Jack- The way we do it over here is to take a uninterrupted power supply from the computer market that uses 12V internal batteries and has a sufficient power rating. For a printer like yours you will need one that has at least 1250VA.
Then we remove the beeper that warns of the mains off and charge it's internal battery from a vehicle source that is on only when the engine is running.
With this we have no load on the electrical system in the vehicle, and the inverter is fed by the stock cabling in the UPS.
This avoids the problem to transport more than 50A over a long cable and the battery drain you have.
With an additional relay you can use the internal electronics of the UPS to charge the vehicle battery when the vehicle is attached to an external power supply.
The UPS usually have a decent sine wave output, and enough peak power to start a laser printer. You will still need to look for a "laser printer rating" in the specs of the UPS- I have good experiences using APC power supplies.
By doing these mods to it you will lose the warranty, and if not done correctly you can create a hazard (electrical shock, fire etc...)

If you have questions regarding this I will gladly help you but will not assume any responsibility.

HTH

AlpineRAM

 

I did something like that once with a UPS (24vdc bus) and found it wouldn't "Start" without a quality external AC source to synch up to. After it started, the ext AC source could be removed and it would operate until the inverter was shutdown for whatever reason.

Before gutting a nice pure sinewave UPS, make sure it will "black start" on battery power only.


K.

 

Good point SoTex!

All the APC ones I had would "black start" without an issue- except very much beeping.

But if you just want the inverter, you should mount the inverter close to the battery and use fat cables. It's much easier to route the rather thin AC cable and you have less loss.

AlpineRAM

 

I think that I would find out what the draw is when the laser fires. That is the peak draw. You need something that can take that load over and over.

Hal

 

Yep, the problem is that laser printers have a higher initial draw when warming up and that is probably over the limit of the 800w. Think of it in the way a motor pulls more on start up. I would think the 1200w one would work, but I don't know for sure.

 

Thanks for the replies, guys. I ended up trading the 800W in for a 1200W and tried it. No go, even with 2 gauge wire connected directly to the car battery, and with the car running. This was not a true sine wave inverter. I never thought about the UPS idea like AlpineRam posted. That's interesting to say the least. For now, I have resorted to putting an HP460 inkjet printer in the car along with the thermal printer that was originally installed. I like the 460 ok, but the laser printer with automatic duplex printing would be awesome. I guess it's back to the drawing board. I already returned the 1200W inverter. You guys had some great answers. I should have posted this before I started working on this project.

 

And to think when I was 'copping' we used pens, (remember those?), and we actually WROTE our citations!



(Dang young whipper-snappers!)

chaikwa.

 

I've got a friend who runs a 120v wire welder off of a 2000 watt inverter. At least I think it's 2000 maybe 4 or 5??

 

Jack,
It would be very interesting what the voltage is on that 12v plug when you try and drag that much current thru it. Most ciggy lighter sockets are very small wires and will drop heavy voltage thru them with much current. And, as we discussed on the previous thread, a square wave generator (as the one pictured in the previous post) or a modified sine wave do not produce a power that is efficient in most electronic applications. You can plug a fan into a square wave and run it, then into a sine wave, and the fan will run much faster on the sine wave. And that is not an "electronic" piece of equipment. You can only imagine what it does with electronics. I would carefully take some jumper cables, rig up a cigarette lighter with them, then try your inverter with the printer and see what happens.