Does anyone have a capacitor-like solution for laser printers?

[jnaeve_apc]

I read through some of the past posts regarding the effects a Laser Printer has on a UPS and have seen this for quite some time, often taking my Laser Printer off line entirely to avoid the issues. I have 3 APC ES750's in my home office, 1 controlling an iMac and associated accessories, 1 controlling a MacBook Pro and associated accessories and 1 controlling two wireless access points, a router and two phone sets. I have a Laser Printer (Brother HL2070N) that is on a stand-alone surge protector but is on the same household circuit. When it power cycles, it trips all three UPS's and they flash on screen that I'm running on UPS power but of course it switches back and goes off. However, this happens a lot when I use the laser printer and it appears to be a general issue with Laser Printers, not brand specific as this has happened with a Lexmark and an HP LaserJet in the past.

My thought is that perhaps I could install some sort of capacitor device between the Laser Printer and the surge protector. I don't know if these exist or if they're cost prohibitive but to me, this seems to make the most sense.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks!
JimN - new to APC Forums.

[Techie_apc · Accepted solution]

Hello JimN,

Let me tell you my suggestions prior to looking for any other solution to fix the issue. Do you have an APC Power Chute Personal Edition software to monitor the Back UPS ES 750? If so, could you please check the PCPE Performance Summary to find out what power event causes the UPS transfer from Online to On battery when the laser printer power cycles? And also adjust the UPS sensitivity to Low and check if that helps.

Secondly, the Back UPS ES 750 UPS is a standby topology unit. It does not have an Automatic Voltage Regulator(AVR) feature. It just transfers to battery in case if there is any issues with the input power in order to protect the connected equipment from power problems. It will not attempt to boost/trim the input voltage when the input voltage is high/low. APC UPSs which has got an AVR feature will not use its battery when it is in AVR mode. My suspicious is that the laser printer consumes a lot of power which may create a false brownout condition. Thus, the UPSs in question transfer to battery mode to protect the connected equipment from low/high voltage.