If you’re serious about printing then you’ll have no option but to use a laser printer. It delivers superior quality and can carry out more complex tasks. In the long run, many people find them more cost efficient than cheap inkjet printers. But does this apply to power consumption? Laser printers need to run much hotter in order to melt toner onto the paper.
Below we will discuss and test laser printer wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is a Laser Printer?
The average laser printer uses between 250 and 500 watts when actively printing but the maximum power can peak at double this number when first heating up.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your laser printer. For example, a small home printer can use under 300W while a professional model can use 500W or more during printing.
As you can see, this is a very high power consumption compared to an inkjet printer. This is because it needs to heat up to 200℃ or more before printing. In addition, you will see a large difference in wattage based on the size and quality of the appliance. Generally, the larger the printer the more power it uses as it works harder to complete the job.
In addition, a laser printer uses 1W to 2W when left connected in standby.
How to Find Out Your Laser Printer Wattage
There’s 3 ways you can work out the wattage of a laser printer.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the laser printer’s specification. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the appliance. If not, you can check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your laser printer to get instant information.
I used one to test a laser printer which gave a live reading of 391.2W while actively printing.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your laser printer you can use this to find the running watts. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
Laser Printer Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts a laser printer draws. Below is a collection of modern laser printers with their listed power ratings.
| Laser Printer Model | Average Printing Watts |
| Canon i-SENSYS LBP6030B | 330 |
| Canon i-SENSYS LBP6670dn | 560 |
| HP LaserJet 1018 | 250 |
| HP LaserJet Pro P1566 | 420 |
| Epson WorkForce AL-M320DN | 609 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different laser printers. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does a Laser Printer Use?
You can use laser printer wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your laser printer.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, a laser printer drawing 500W would use 500Wh when actively printing for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 500W laser printer running for 1 hour uses 0.5kWh.
In reality, you might actively use a professional laser printer for 2 hours a month. In this case it uses about 1000Wh or 1kWh electricity a month. That’s 12kWh a year.
That’s a rough electricity cost of $1.8 a year to actively laser print for 2 hours every month.
Using a Laser Printer Off-Grid
If you’re planning to use your laser printer in an off-grid situation like a power outage, boat, or remote location, the information above is important. It enables you to pick the correct power products and work out how long you can run.
You can either use a power inverter, portable power station, or generator to produce AC electricity.
To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity.
Your power source, like an inverter, should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your laser printer. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To laser print, you will need at least 1200W of pure sine wave power capacity to cope with peaks and running power consumption.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the laser printer for the required amount of time. As we already know, it will use about 500Wh electricity per hour of printing. This is the equivalent to 41Ah on a 12V battery.
Truth is: you might be better off using a low powered inkjet printer in this scenario to cut your consumption by 90%!
How Many Watts Does a Laser Printer Use Summary
I hope you now have a clear understanding of how many watts a laser printer uses.
As you’ve discovered, laser printers use a lot of power to deliver high quality results. In fact, it can peak at over 1000W! This is far greater than an inkjet which runs at under 50W. While this makes it tricky to run off-grid, the overall effect on electricity consumption is not too bad. You can easily actively run your printer for a couple of hours a month without racking a huge electricity bill. You’ll probably save more in toner cost compared to using a low powered inkjet.
