Do You Leave Your Inkjet Printers Powered On?

[Jason Dunn]

What's the prevailing wisdom nowadays - should you leave an inkjet printer powered on? I bought an Epson R200 and a Canon MP780 in the past week (more on that later, especially CD printing) and I was wondering if I should be leaving the R200 turned on. I've always turned my standalone inkjet printers off when I'm not using them, but after being turned on there's always that irritating warm-up time. The MP780 will stay on of course because it's also my fax machine. I looked through Epson's R20 FAQ, and there's no mention of this issue, and a Google search was too broad to be of any use (don't you just hate that?). I'm concerned that if I leave the R200 powered on I'll dry out the ink heads or something similar - but I really have no factual basis for thinking that, which is why I'm curious what the standard wisdom is in this area. :-)

[OSUKid7]

I've had a HP DeskJet 932C for...let's see, probably over 3 years, and it's been on close to 24/7. It's attached to the "family" computer downstairs, and I have to leave it on so I can print to it from other computers on the network. It continues to work quite well, and we usually print to it in b/w draft mode since that looks fine for most purposes.

[michael]

Off when not in use.

[ctmagnus]

Off. HP printers (at least the DJ970CSE and DJ5550) are intelligent enough to wake up if they get a signal that there's a print job coming their way.

[that_kid]

My printers have been on for years. I know the HP 970 and 1218 can autopower on but once on I never think about turing them off.

[Jason Dunn]

Thanks guys, looks like I'll be leaving that sucker on. ;-)

[Mike Temporale]

Off. HP printers (at least the DJ970CSE and DJ5550) are intelligent enough to wake up if they get a signal that there's a print job coming their way.

Exactly what I do. HP Deskjets are smart enough to know when to turn on. I just wish they would know when to turn off! I wish my HP LaserJet was smart enough to turn on when a print job came it's way. :?

[Darius Wey]

If your printer can switch to standby mode after a few minutes of inactivity, then by all means, leave it on. You save juice and avoid long startup times that way.

I haven't physically turned my printer off for quite some time because of that. :lol:

[bigkingfun]

I have an R200 and I leave mine on most of the time without any problems. I've read that Epson printers flush a small amount of ink through the printhead each time they're turned on. I don't remember where I saw it now, but supposedly if you turn it on and off something like 90 times you'll use up all the ink without ever printing a word.

That could be an urban legend, but I figure with the cost of the cartridges I'm not going to take a chance that it's true.

[jeffd]

My canon will actually replace the print head into off position if not given a print job for a while. This causes it to need to go through startup movements again when a print job is sent. I might leave it on but #1 the light would keep me awake and #2 I print so little that I have problems with my print heads drying up. ;)