laser printer/UPS potential damage?

[Anonymous user]

(moved from General Discussions)

I've had a Back-UPS ES 550 for about 2.5 years now, and I just replaced an old inkjet printer with a Brother HL-2220 personal laser printer. Upon booting up the printer the UPS almost immediately shut off power and emitted a continuous alarm tone (overload alarm?). I immediately turned off the power button and noticed I had plugged the printer into the battery backup side by accident. I switched over to the surge suppression only side and reset the UPS, which seemed to power back up fine. I booted up the computer and make a couple of test prints, but the UPS may have clicked when I did so (hard to tell over printer noise).

Only after this did I do some research and discover that a laser printer and s UPS don't mix well. I've now moved the printer to a separate outlet on its own surge protector, and everything's working so far as I can tell. I also looked up the printer specs, and it apparently draws 400W when printing, while the ES 500 is rated for 330W. Oops.

I'm wondering if having a laser printer plugged in for such a short time could have damaged either the printer or the UPS?

Thanks for any help.

[BillP · Accepted solution]

most likely you just overloaded the UPS due to the power consumption the laser printer requires while warming up and printing. as long as the UPS powers up normally and passes its self test and does not make any strange noises, i would not be concerned. the UPS is designed to overload and protect itself by tripping its overload circuit breaker.

hope that helps