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DO you leave you printer on at home?

R

rocko918

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 5, 2003
60
0
Bristow , Va
I have a epson stylus c86 and was wondering if you guys leave your printers on. I only turn it on when i need to print some thing. Does that hurt the life of the printer?

thanks
 
I leave all three of my printers on all the time. Never really thought about it potentially being bad for them. Not sure it matters all that much, does it?

Why does anyone even need three printers? First one is an HP OfficeJet D135, one of those print/scan/copy/fax things. Handy to have around. Then I decided I really needed the ability to print directly on CD and DVD media, so I got an Epson SC 900. When I got my PowerBook last year, it came with a free HP 5150. I hooked that up to the Airport Express for convenient wireless printing.
I repeat: Why does anyone even need three printers? :rolleyes: :D
 
I leave my Brother HL-1435 Laser Printer on all the time. Its on 24-7. When its not in use for like 5 minutes to goes into sleep mode so everything shuts down until a print job is sent to it.
 
powermac666 said:
When I got my PowerBook last year, it came with a free HP 5150. I hooked that up to the Airport Express for convenient wireless printing.
Click to expand...

I have that as my school printer, not bad, does the job well and fast. (Got it when i also got my pb)
At home i have an HP photosmart 7960 (i believe) for photos etc
I leave them on all the time 24/7
 
rocko918 said:
I have a epson stylus c86 and was wondering if you guys leave your printers on. I only turn it on when i need to print some thing. Does that hurt the life of the printer?

thanks
Click to expand...
On the Epson C86, you need to turn it off if you're not using it for a couple of days. If you're using it every day, you can leave it on.

Every time you turn the C86 on, it uses up a little ink.

Due to the ink wastage, I recommend not power cycling the printer more than once a day in most cases.

I treat both my Epson printers this way (C86, 2200) and haven't had any head clogging problems, so I haven't had to run the head cleaning routines on either. The 2200 is about 17 months old. The C86 is a few months old.
 
if you have an inkjet, and you don't use it often, leaving it on can dry up the ink. So i'm told by my epson rep.
 
I leave my HP Photosmart 7960 on all the time. It goes into sleep mode when it isn't active and springs to life when needed. It is never turned off unless there is a problem connecting to the computer. I see in no way how this would harm the printer...
 
Bear said:
On the Epson C86, you need to turn it off if you're not using it for a couple of days. If you're using it every day, you can leave it on.

Every time you turn the C86 on, it uses up a little ink.

Due to the ink wastage, I recommend not power cycling the printer more than once a day in most cases.

I treat both my Epson printers this way (C86, 2200) and haven't had any head clogging problems, so I haven't had to run the head cleaning routines on either. The 2200 is about 17 months old. The C86 is a few months old.
Click to expand...

IT is not used everyday so i guess leaving it off it the best suggestion.

thanks guys!!!
 
I turn mine off when its not in use. Uses less energy that way, and the lights bother me when I try to sleep at night.
 
I hate the way that inkjets dry up after a while. My Epson Stylus 880 is pretty good about it, but I've had issue in the past. I did not leave my printers on un til fairly recently. Nowadays I have a an HP Laserjet 4 that lives on a shelf with the Epson and my old (Lime :D ) iMac which shares the inkjet. No problems for about a yer, although we go through ink cartridges quickly.

Laser printers like mine are designed for high throughput and being left on, but inkjets aren't as robust.
 
i have an HP Laserjet4 as well
but i turn it off whenever i don't have to use it..these old heavy bricks use to much energy ... and hate all those leds computer hardware somehow always "needs"
 
I always turn my HP printer off when its not in use. Never thought about longevity, but to save energy. I only print something two or three times a week.
 
I find turning a printer on and off uses up more ink. So I will leave it on for at least 24 hours until the next time I need to use it. Otherwise if I don't use it for several days or weeks I just turn it off after 24 hours of use.
 
i leave my deskjet on 24/7.

i really doubt leaving inkjets on increases the ink drying... i think it probably dries the same either way, once you install the cartridge. But yeah, turning it on/off does usually bleed the jets, which while good to do uses ink.
 
I leave my HP Laserjet 1015 on all the time. Turning it off would defeat the purpose of having it tucked away in the wall unit via Airport Express.
 
If you don't use the printer all the time and leave it on, you'll pay for it in a higher energy bill.

Those energy bleeding devices called power bricks scattered around the house take their toll, when you add all of them up.
 
My Canon i450 has some options that lets it Sleep and Wake up automatically, I haven't looked in a while but it was buried somewhere in the printers preferences.

Pretty cool even though I don't use the feature very often. As far as I can tell the printer is completely off when it's sleeping as I don't see the power light on at all.
 

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My parents leave their printer on 24/7. I just gave them my HP Deskjet 932c after their Epson SC 777 died (go figure). They always leave the HP on as they did with the Epson.

I would like to get a laser printer, HP of course. I like the power save feature on most of them so I think that's the way to go. I'm sure that feature prolongs the life of the printer. I've noticed that my parents Epson was always warm from leaving it on all of the time.
 
I have an apple laser printer that has been on 24/7 for the last 7-8 years. It doesn't have a sleep mode and every time that you power it up it prints a startup page, so it would be a huge waste to turn it off. That thing has printed about 11,000 pages and it still works fine. It's an amazing printer that just won't die. The print quality isn't that bad either. The max resolution is 300 dpi.
 
Pismo said:
I would like to get a laser printer, HP of course. I like the power save feature on most of them so I think that's the way to go. I'm sure that feature prolongs the life of the printer. I've noticed that my parents Epson was always warm from leaving it on all of the time.
Click to expand...
If it's warm when it's off, it's burning $'s.

Of course cable boxes, VCRs, and power bricks are generally the worst.
 
My friend just bought an HP Laserjet 1320 and he loves it. He also bought an Aiport Exress so he can print wirelessly. When the printer is idle, it'll go to sleep about 5-10 minutes after the last print job finishes. I think I'll get one too because they are inexpensive and the print quality is pretty good.
 
I've got that whole printer/fax/photo copier thing happening so I leave mine on all the time. Mind you, I wouldn't if it was an old-school bubble jet.
 
Keep it on - its networked to my dads room so I just turn on his PC and print... If I turned it off and forgot to turn it on, a reboot of Windows would be required for it to detect the printer again
 
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