We have 2 laptops with wifi cards and a Canon Pixma IP4000 printer (it has parallel and USB ports). We don't have a network or router.
We'd like to be able to print wirelessly from the laptops to the printer.
Will a device like Linksys WPS54G Wireless-G 802.11g Print Server
do the job?
Its nice and small. I could probably velcro it to the side of the printer.
If not, other suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks,
Brooks
Hi, So far I have not come across reliable consumer grade wireless print server. I tried quite a few so far. Anyone has any recommendation? Now I leave a PC and printer always on on my home network, so printer can be shared.
"brooksr" hath wroth:
I have yet to find a USB print server that works with everything. One of my customers conveniently has an IP4000. I tried two different model Linksys print servers without much luck. Sorry, I forgot the model numbers. It would print, but there was no status information coming back from the printer. The computah couldn't tell if there was a paper jam, out of ink, offline, etc. I also tried an Apple Airport Express, with exactly the same problem.
I've had good luck with a DLink DPR-1260:
About $90 anywhere. Note that your IP-4000 is listed as supported:
(Ignore the supported printer list on the data sheet as it's out of date). There are some gotchas in setting up the printer. See the FAQ for details:
Also, make sure you have the latest firmware. The 1.00 firmware was really weird. Oh yeah, the setup URL is:
where xxxxxx are the last six characters of the DPR-1260 MAC address.
I use a Trendnet TE100 P1U print server connected through a linksys router and linksys WAP. I have 5 PC's connected to the network through cables and one wireless. All have worked fine connected to an IP 3000
Trying to wiggle a non-network "dumb" USB printer into some sort of adhoc
802.11 "network" sounds like a bunch of headaches just waiting to happen. I wouldn't try it without the printer hanging off a computer with a wireless NIC. I bet even an old P2 would even work. But, I know you want a pretty, "standalone", printer... :-)If you don't absolutetly need the range of 802.11, how about just making it very simple: bluetooth. You can get a USB bluetooth printer adapter (they don't need drivers, everything needed is built right-in, its just USB-Bluetooth bridge.). If the laptops don't have bluetooth built-in, bluetooth USB adapters are cheap. Bought a couple Zonets from Newegg not too long ago. They do what they are advertised to do. I don't do any "fancy" things with bluetooth like networking. I just use bluetooth simply as "cable replacements" for a few things here and there...
Thanks for the post. I went to
Do you know the model number?
Brooks
Eric wrote:
Hi,
Sorry, I meant that I bought a couple simple USB bluetooth (PC) adapters.
What you would need for a printer is a "USB Bluetooth Print Server" or may be labeled as "USB Print Server Hub" (that also has a Bluetooth Access Point.) (In addition to PC Bluetooth adapters for the laptops if they don't already have Bluetooth built-in.)
I've never used one of these animals, but have seen them for sale. It looks like Zonet doesn't offer any and they are (oddly) more rare than I assumed they would be. Something like the Belkin F8T03 was what I was thinking.
Definetly read reviews on them as they seem to be limited and probably aren't all equal. Strange, as one would think they would be more popular. (?) I wouldn't mind having one for my HP Laserjet, myself...
Oops, scratch that "USB Hub".. Got myself confused.
Google phrases that'll put you in the right direction:
"Bluetooth Print Server" "Bluetooth Print Adapter"
Think I may start reading up a bit and getting one myself. My USB laser printer is networked by hanging off a computer on my WLAN, but wouldn't mind replacing the USB cable with BT so it could be put in a better place..
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