Technical > Computer Hardware Help > Can PSU cable be used on printer?

Can PSU cable be used on printer?

Yup.

reply to fartness
Provided the cable fits, yes.

reply to fartness
I just tried it and my battery backup started freaking out and it caused my other battery backups to kick in for a second. There's a red warning light on the printer, so it doesn't work... my computer recognized the printer though.

Yeah, that totally toasted the printer. Smells burning.

reply to fartness
Is this a brand new printer?
This didn't happened because of the power cable.

reply to fartness
Either you plugged the power cable wrong (highly improbable) or that printer died of natural causes...

reply to fartness
It was a brand new printer. The cable was from an Antec Basiq 350W PSU. What would have caused the battery backup to freak and the other battery backups plugged into different outlets to freak?

It's a Samsung ML 2510, btw.

Seeing as that is a laser printer, I really hope you didn't plug it into the Battery side of that battery backup.

NEVER plug a laser printer into a battery backup unless you plug it into the 'surge only' side of the battery. If you plug the printer directly into the wall it should work fine.

Any standard power cable would work fine. There's no way the power cable itself caused a problem unless it was faulty.

The first time I tried the battery side, then I tried the surge side. Same results.

Why can't I do that, and what damage did I likely do? The printer still turns on but it smells and doesn't seem to work (warning light).

Laser printers require high amperage to startup and print, (most) battery backups are not designed to provide the kind of instant power that lasers need, and you can easily damage the circuitry of the UPS by connecting one to it. Most UPSs have explicit instructions NOT to connect a laser printer.

As far as the printer error, the manual for it is here: »downloadcenter.samsung.com/conte···lish.pdf

Start on page 36 of the PDF for troubleshooting.

The UPS still works, do you think it's ok or damaged?

What about my other UPS's that were plugged into a different wall outlet, but most likely on the same circuit? Could those have been damaged as well? They went on battery backup each time I turned the laser printer on.

reply to fartness
My guess is that they went on battery backup because the Laser printer was overloading the circuit.

The Laser printer probably did not do any damage to the UPS this time.

Try taking the printer to another part of the house so you can plug it into another circuit and test there with a laptop or the printer's internal test page.

reply to fartness
The one you had it plugged into probably went into a protect mode, while the other batteries most likely turned on due to the voltage drop from the printer.

Keep in mind the printer is trying to pull 5~7 amps, most likely on a 15 amp circuit. If you have a lot of equipment in the room you're putting it in you may want to see if you can relocate it to another circuit altogether.

The batteries are probably fine. If you want to test it, run the self-test on the UPS (if it has one) or unplug it from a wall to see if it still responds normally

reply to fartness
If this is a brand new printer, are you sure that there isn't some sort of packing inside the printer that needed to be removed? It might has locked up some moving parts and thereby caused the overload. Happened to me once on a sharp laser.
--
HN9000/Spaceway III,74m/1w,Elite package,XP Pro,

reply to fartness
We had a post about substandard power cables awhile back i believe. All those 'equivalent' cables may not be what they appear to be.

Find another cable. Perhaps swap the ones you have in a pinch. Maybe it is the cable that is fried not the printer.

I cut open one of mine that felt kinda 'puny'. Even tho it said 125v 10A on it there was no way any of us that looked at it were willing to run that much juice thru what appeared to be 24g wire if that! It certainly was NOT the 18g it claimed to be.

I have enough that grabbing a handful to compare works. With only a cable or two it may be hard to tell. Find a known heavy duty one and cop a feel

Lasers should have the original cable to be sure, they are probably less likely to have skimped on the supplier for cable. If it is newer they may just send you one. A 350w PSU can probably get by on the substandard ones.

oops, even i can't tell easily. Just cut a good one cause i didn't seem to save that bad example Think i already tossed all the suspicious ones here.

PS: My HP color laser says 110-127v and 6.8a and has a noticably heavier (marked 14g instead of 18g) cable than anything else so yours has a fairly healthy draw.

reply to fartness

reply to fartness
I have a REALLY thick cable from a 700W PSU, can I use that, or is it too thick?

Too thick is not a problem, too thin is.

reply to fartness
I have the same printer and it's got an incredible draw! When I first connected it to the battery backup, it shut down my computer so I now have it rigged to a serparate circuit. At my old house it would flicker the lights if on the same circuit as the computer.

BTW, it comes with a power cable so you must have lost yours.
--
"While you can teach an old dog new tricks, you simply can't teach him to be a cat."

"Are you my Mummy?"