[DM-MUG] Printing in a no-grid situation

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 5:07 PM, Sharalyn <homeonthefarm at iowatelecom.net> wrote:
> > That kind of printer would only work on a very large inverter off you car battery..
> > 1500 watts or more.
> > It must be a "true sin" type of inverter too.
> > A laser printer does not like dirty AC power or any hint of a square wave ..
>
> Ok, this sounds too technical and impractical...and probably too expensive... for me to take this much further. But just so I understand, what is a "very large inverter" and what what is a "true sin"? Is there a plug and play version of what you are referring to or would it require a lot of knowledge or money to make it work?
>
> Finally, one last question. I have a back-up battery for my computer. Could the printer work off that or is that the same as a car battery?
>

An inverter is a device that lets you run a normal electrical outlet
based device in a car or truck. It converts battery voltage to
something that resembles that from your outlet. You can get them at
walmart or an auto store. There are different qualities, cheap ones
don't work well for high tech devices because they don't produce a
regular sine wave <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sine_wave>, instead
they produce something roughly shaped like that but more squared off
instead of rounded.

Your battery backup is just a 12v battery with a high quality inverter
built in. A small brother multi-function laser should run OK but
generally speaking a laser printer will need a larger battery backup
to work well. I know the lights momentarily flicker in my office when
my little personal laser printer starts warming up, which implies they
use a lot of power when they're getting ready to print. Older printers
(circa laserjet 2/mid 90's) could be damaged by running them off of a
battery backup so you may want to just read through the user's manual
to see if it's ok to run it like that.

Its very hard to tell how much printing you can do because, for
example, printing one sheet every five minutes will use more power
than printing 12 sheets at once. Since you have the battery backup
already you can see how long it will work by simply unplugging it from
the wall and giving it a test.

Alexander's inkjet suggestion is good. They use less power. If you're
in a pinch you can always run to your favourite store and pick one up
if the situation calls for it.

--
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode