With the proliferation of electrophotographic color printers and copying machines, efforts are underway to reduce manufacturing costs. In essence, a color printer is four printers mechanisms working in harmony to create a color output. With the first implementations of color printers, the four printers mechanisms are relatively independent and complete. By making these independent, several subsystems are quadrupled inside the single color printer. One such subsystem is that of the high voltage power supply.
As known in the art electrophotography printing, a high voltage AC power supply is required. By replicating this subsystem four times, one for each developer, the approach is relatively expensive and requires a large space in the printer. Additionally, the plurality of power supplies necessitates multiple calibrations and a large number of components, making it harder to manufacture and not as reliable.
The most common arrangement for these high voltage alternating current power supplies is that of switching power supply. Because the switching frequency of these power supplies is typically within the human audible range, each power supply emits audible noise into the surrounding environment. Therefore, it becomes necessary to somehow contain this sound or reduce it to an acceptable level. By multiplying the number of power supplies necessary to complete the operation of the color printer, the sound reduction process becomes more complicated.