Posted by CarmFL on 1/22/06 8:48am
Msg #90092

Mobile Office Using Brother Lasers

Can anyone specifically using Brother lasers in their car give me some guidance?

I've been trying to get my Brother printers up and running with different inverters for a month to no avail. My Brothers run at 8.8 and 9.0 amps, or 1056 and 1080 watts. I have a 1500 watt pure sine inverter which I plugged directly to my car battery and it goes into overload immediately upon starting the printer. Brother published everywhere that one of the printers was 460 watts (not!!!), so I don't know if they're lying about the amps on the machine too or what though I wouldn't think so. I know HP printers run on less amps but they are more expensive to buy and run and their quality has gone way down in the last few years so I'm trying to avoid having to buy an HP just for my car.

If you are running a Brother in your car, could you please tell me exactly what your set up is? I'm going crazy buying different inverters and having each one fail each time. Thanks in advance for anyone who can help.

Reply by LawrenceOK on 1/22/06 9:28am
Msg #90108

Please don't take this response the wrong way Charm but, I would take that vehicle to one of the truck stops close to you. They are the ones that know their stuff when it comes to things like this. One of my relatives drives for Prime Inc. and when I brought up the idea of going fully mobile he advised me that if I did, to take the van to a truck stop and have them install the power equipment. No I did not go mobile, the insurance on the Van would have doubled and I would have had to register it as a commercial vehicle.

Reply by Charles_Ca on 1/22/06 11:31am
Msg #90121

Re: Mobili Office - Need Headroom

Hi It would appear to me that you don't have enough headroom in your inverter. When you initially flip the switch on your equipment the inrush causes much higher transient curents than you would have once the equipment has stabiliazed. Equipment manufatureres years ago started to put in rush current limiting devices (usually thermisters) to prevent the inrush damaging thei eqipment. I like to calculate about 30% more capacity in my inverters esepcially if I am using inductive loads (motors for instance). Inductive loads have higher transients thatn other types because o fhte changes in the work being done. I hope this helps.

Reply by CarmFL on 1/22/06 11:47am
Msg #90123

Re: Mobili Office - Need Headroom

I think adding 30% to the 1056 watts I'm supposedly using on the printer still doesn't hit 1500 watts. Also, this inverter has peak surges to 4500 watts to cover the initial surges in equipment to start them. Thanks though.

Reply by Margaret_FL on 1/22/06 12:13pm
Msg #90125

Re: Mobili Office - Need Headroom

I just emailed you and left a phone message to call me. I have a 3000 watt but it is not hooked up to
my car battery. The battery is under the backseat and has a battery isolator. It does recharge from my car battery but does not run off it. That is what the isolator does. I have had to replace the battery one because I left it on too many times and went into the house late at night, got up next morning and the battery alarm was going off. Normally you have to just drive a few hours and it charged back up.

Reply by Charles_Ca on 1/22/06 3:43pm
Msg #90148

Inverter will handle up to 300% over, that's interesting how

about your current limiting devices??