Wireless printers - any advice?

buglawton

Using a complete spare PC to make a USB printer become wireless will work but not suit all. Power consumption per annum, anyone?

esuhl

buglawton wrote: »

Using a complete spare PC to make a USB printer become wireless will work but not suit all. Power consumption per annum, anyone?

I have the print server on for, at most, 30mins a week. The PC is a 10-year old "small form factor" PC with modest power consumption. I'd guesstimate that it uses around 100W.

So, to answer your question, about 2.6kWh (costing ~37p) in my case.

buglawton

37p per day?

esuhl

buglawton wrote: »

37p per day?

Well, no -- you asked for the power consumption per annum...

100W for 30mins/week is equivalent to 50Wh/week.
50Wh/week is equivalent to 2.6kWh/annum.
Electricity costs roughly 15p/kWh.
So 2.6kWh/annum costs about 37p/annum.

andy2004

30min x 100watts = 3000 watts = 3kilowatts. average 10-15p per kilowatt hour dependant on supplier and tariff, 30-45p x 52 weeks for the amount of time its on. guesstimate £26 a year.
but his forgotten, power supply of printer + motherboard + graphics power + hdd power, + anything else inside the case which is using power even if its not actually being used I would estimate more in the region of 150-200watts combined.

esuhl

andy2004 wrote: »

30min x 100watts = 3000 watts = 3kilowatts.

Multiplying minutes by Watts does not result in Watts!!!

andy2004 wrote: »

but his forgotten, power supply of printer + motherboard + graphics power + hdd power, + anything else inside the case which is using power even if its not actually being used I would estimate more in the region of 150-200watts combined.

The question concerned the additional cost of using a print server, so it would be incorrect to include the power consumption of the printer!

The guestimate of 100W was for the PC. The motherboard is just a fancy word for the main circuit board inside a PC. And graphics cards, HDDs, etc. are usually internal components (i.e. if you ever open up your own PC to look inside, these are the components you will see -- have a look sometime!).

andy2004

dont need to take a look, i built my own, and still have the side off mine, as i'm in 2 minds as to put in a 1.5tb replacement WD due to the last 2 failing. not sure whether to trust it, not that i need it at the moment,

As for graphics cards that also debatable mine is onboard.
not all hdd are internal, i have 5 which are external. but there are other concerns considering its a 10year old, every PCI card which is attached, also using power if you have any.

And i was getting my watts and minutes mixed up. DOH!. its already 1hr per 100-150watts, its late.

esuhl

andy2004 wrote: »

As for graphics cards that also debatable mine is onboard.
not all hdd are internal, i have 5 which are external. but there are other concerns considering its a 10year old, every PCI card which is attached, also using power if you have any.

Maybe I misunderstood... Weren't you saying that I'd forgotten to include the power for graphics cards, etc. in my calculation...? If so, the graphics cards and external devices you have aren't relevant to how much power my print server consumes...

The PC in question is a Compaq Presario 1GHz PIII with onboard graphics, no expansion cards, a single 20GB 5400rpm hard disk, a USB wi-fi adapter, and no mouse, monitor or keyboard. I think the PSU is only rated at 250W, if that.

In any case, I don't think the guestimate of 100W would be too far out... Maybe 150W absolute tops...? And since I'm basing that figure on the PC as a whole, I haven't forgotten to include any internal components (they're accounted for in the total). I know this is MSE, but if I'm spending 37p a year on it, I'm not too concerned if my calculations are out by as much as 50% -- that's less than 19p a year difference!

esuhl

andy2004 wrote: »

And i was getting my watts and minutes mixed up. DOH!. its already 1hr per 100-150watts, its late.

Ah, but power consumption is measured in kWh. I've never understood why we don't use KJ (kilojoules), though...

The example I gave was using 100W for 30minutes. Since thirty minutes is half an hour, we multiply 100W by 0.5h to get 50Wh (watt-hours). Then divide by 1000 to get 0.05kWh.

That's the consumption over half an hour, but if I'm only using it for half an hour a week, we can multiply by 52 to get an annual total: 0.05kWh * 52 = 2.6kWh.

John_Gray

Put paid to power-consumption speculation misery with a Power Meter! Example from Maplin at £10