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Fuser Unit


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HP 8121-0946 Angled Power Cord P4014, M601 Printers.

HP Part 8121-0946 is the right angled power cord used for many HP LaserJet series printers. HP specify it as a 1.9 metre long black lead with 18AWG internal wire. This particular lead is intended for use in the UK, Malaysia, Hong-Kong and Singapore and has a BS1363 3Pin fused plug moulded on one end and an IEC C13 female connector at the other (sometimes referred to as a kettle plug).

This kind of power cord is used for many LaserJet series printers including the M176N, M177FW, M3027, M3035XS, M575C, M127, P4014 and M601, M602 and M603. (We don't have a comprehensive list at present, it would be quite long).

Power cord is an American phrase but it has the merit of being short and understandable worldwide. In the UK we tend to call the same thing a power lead, mains cable or just a flex. This "cord" is a slightly ungenerous 1.9 metres (6.2 feet) long, sufficient to descend from a desk and reach a wall-point in most cases. However:

8121-0946
  • There are location constraints on where large printers can be; they take up substantial space and some of them have towers of paper-feeders and are floor-standing. Ideally they should be more than 2 metres away from any desk as there will be some emission of particulates. (All printers are likely to emit some particles, not just laser printers).
  • HP recommend plugging laser printers direct into a wall socket and not just into an extension and certainly not into a UPS. This is because the current required when the fuser operates is substantial - above 7 Amps momentarily - so a printer sharing an extension with other equipment will momentarily brown-out the power. You may need to take the printer lead to the wall, and not just to that convenient extension under the desk.

Ideally you might have like a 3 or 5 metre cable with your expensive new printer. Be grateful you got a cable at all. Most printer manufacturers don't ship a data lead at all these days. (EU law forces them to ship a power cable.)

If you can't plug the printer directly into a wall socket then a good quality extension lead that isn't shared will be adequate. By good quality we mean rated for the current - not the thin extensions rated for 6 amps or the kind that has one bent metal bar to make contact with the plug. There are a lot of poor quality extensions out there that will work in the sense that the printer will come on but where the power carrying capacity isn't quite good enough. A sign of problems might be 50.2 or 50.4 errors, or the computer frequently crashes.

An angled IEC lead is quite often better suited to equipment that the straight variety as it takes less space and as implemented with many of the LaserJet printers it allows the wire to exit straight downwards.

Some of the printers that take this cord can have an optional duplex unit such as CB519A that protrude from the back of the printer and will conflict with a conventional straight IEC cable.

Power cords do develop problems particularly if they are flexed at an inappropriate angle or moved frequently.

A very common fault with IEC cables is that they aren't pushed home hard enough and make intermittent or too little contact between the male pins on the equipment and the female grips in the C13 "socket" on the cable. (The pins on the equipment are male, those on the cable female, so what people commonly call a plug isn't really so. Push the cable fully home into the equipment, it doesn't make a very positive connection.

A typical cable has 3 conductors each using 7 strands of thinner copper wire. Thinner wires are more flexible because the circular cross section is more easily bent and elasticity in the copper allows the wire to both distort in cross section and stretch to some extent. After prolonged bending the wires do get metal fatigue, develop a crystalline fracture that is not so conductive and ultimately fail at a point. One broken strand will raise the cables resistance fractionally but current will transfer to the other strands so there isn't an outright failure. Only when several strands have broken near one another is there an evident issue.

Power cords wearing out is familiar with things like vacuum cleaners and power-drills where the wire is endlessly flexed. since laser printers sit in place year after year it is unusual for the cable to be moved at all.

Problems with a power cord should be found when equipment is electrically tested - the earth integrity test should spot any breakage or high resistance in the ground or earth wire and a resistance check may spot a problem in the power wires.

Power cords are not usually repaired if they are damaged because safety regulations imply it is better to replace them. Minor abrasions might be tackled with electricians amalgamating tape. If damage has gone through the cable sheath we would recommend replacing the cable. It is possible for damage to cut or impair the electrical ground and the cable still apparently function but be incapable of blowing a fuse - leaving equipment and people in a very hazardous situation.

We actually found it quite difficult to find the right-angled power cords on HPs site; they seem to specify another cord at the drop of a hat. Sometime they have photos, sometimes not. This list turned up in the Enterprise 600 M601 manual.
8121-0951, China 220V 10A
8121-0945, China 220V 10A (again)
8121-0952, Thailand 122V 10A
8121-0953, Argentina 220V 10A
8121-0947, Switzerland 220V 10A
8121-0949, Denmark 220V 10A
8121-0954, South Africa 220V 10A
8121-0946, Malaysia, Hong Kong 220V 10A
8121-0950, Europe 220V 10A
8120-5301, Peru, Chile 220V 10A
8121-1005, Israel 220V 10A
8121-0827, Australia 220V 10A
8121-0971, Taiwan 110V 13A
8121-1070, Brazil 110V 10A
8121-1083, India 220V 6A
8121-1142, US Canada 110V
8121-1144, Japan 110V -12A

There are a few points of interest about the list. It takes 17 power cords to cover the world market. The UK is omitted but luckily we know our destiny is to play the same role as Hong-Kong. China gets into the list twice, it is big but there is no apparent difference between the cables. IEC sockets are rated to 10 amps but some of these cables are rated at 13 amps.

Incidentally there is a potential hazard with IEC cables. Some of those shipped with cheap PCs are thin and rated at 6 amps, not the 10 amp rating of the IEC C13-C14 socket pair. This does not matter with PCs because it is quite rare for them to draw more than 2 amps. However a laser printer will draw upwards of 6 amps in the UK and 12 amps in the US which is a definite overload. The BS1363 mains plug we use in the UK can be fused and there are three fuse types: 3amps which is not quite enough for some PCs, definitely not enough for larger laser printers, 5 amps which might be enough for laser printers and 13 amps which is potentially too much for the socket. OK there are tolerances, but look at the power rating on the cable and the fuse before pushing any old cable into a printer.

No one of the sites examined had any information beyond what is contained in Partsurfer. Most had simply scraped the HP Partsurfer entry.

Supply Situation

Almost any cable manufacturer with welding and injection moulding machinery can make this kind of thing. We have seen some truly horrible power-plugs over time. The HP branded product should at least have the merit of being carefully specified and supervised.

The HP part has two demerits: price and availability. In July 2013 these specific cables were not listed by any distributor.

Curiously the cable is listed as refurb by a couple of suppliers, sometimes at truly extraordinary prices like the $72 wanted by Everprint. The explanation is that some organisations like hospitals have a policy that they must buy a manufacturers original if one is available - so there are people out there prepared to sell a cable for $160.

We can provide these parts when required. The price is about £12 which largely reflects the logistics of obtaining one - the HP component is quite expensive. We can also sell a an angled IEC cable with a 5 amp fuse for £5.

These are guidelines, our prices change with distribution lists - see the catalog. Stock numbers indicate there is not usually much call for the part.