Printer Hell

[Let's Sekuhara!]

OK, I have a Time Capsule that works perfectly and an EPSON RX680 that works perfectly. But When I try to make my printer/scanner wireless by plugging it into my Time Capsule, all hell breaks loose, nothing works, and I am referred in an endless loop between different troubleshooting assistants and config menus.

All I want to do is scan something through Photoshop.
I choose File > Import > EPSON RX680/RX685/RX690...

Then comes the error:
Epson Scan cannot be started.
There may be a problem with the network settings. Please use the Troubleshooting Assistant to solve the problem. Do you want to open the Troubleshooting Assistant?
I of course click "Yes".

The assistant opens (it's just a bunch of HTML pages listing generic problems). Meanwhile Photoshop alerts me that it "Could not complete the Import command because there is no scanner installed."
Fantastic. Well it is installed, just not recognized when trying to go through the Time Capsule.

So I go to SysPrefs and look at my printer settings. My printer/scanner is showing up and is listed as "idle". The "Share this printer" box is checked. It's being recognized over the wireless network after all, so what gives?!

I go to my Utilities folder and open EPSON Scan Settings.app
This utility is utterly useless. There is a radio button to select either Local or Network. Of course I choose Network. I click the "Add" button to add my printer since none are listed. I assign it a name and type in my IP address (yes, type... the utility doesn't allow copy/paste). At least I think this is my IP address, since I Googled "what's my IP?" and this is what I found. The utility confirms the IP is valid. Yay.

So I click the "Test" button and of course it fails:
The connection test has failed.
Please use the Troubleshooting Assistant to solve the problem.
Do you want to open the Troubleshooting Assistant?
Does this look familiar???
Just going in circles at this point.

I find a support page on Apple.com:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1253
I follow the steps.

I open Airport Utility.
I see my Time Capsule.
I click "Manual Setup"
I click the Printers tab.
I check "Share printers over Ethernet WAN port."
I check "Advertise printers globally using Bonjour". (not sure if this is necessary or relevant)

I then go back to the Airport tab and within that I select the Time Capsule tab and click the "Edit" button. I check "Use dynamic global hostname" (I have no idea what I'm doing now)
I assign a hostname, username, and password.
I check "Allow configuration over Ethernet WAN port" and "Advertise configuration globally using Bonjour" and click Update.

In the next window I am told to "Correct the problem below before updating this Apple wireless device:
Item:
This Apple wireless device is set up to allow configuration over the Ethernet WAN port, which decreases network security."
OK fine... I uncheck the box to "Allow configuration over Ethernet WAN port"... essentially undoing what I just did. Stupid. Pointless.

This is as far as I have been able to get and I am exhausted. Anyone with printer expertise - please help!

 

[skorpien]

The multifunction printer functions other than printing are not supported by the Time Capsule, AEBS or AEX USB port. In order to set up scanning, the printer needs to be connected via WiFi or ethernet to your router. Assuming you don't have a true network printer (ie, does not have WiFi or ethernet connectivity, and judging from the product specs page it doesn't), you're kind of SOL... almost.

I myself have an Epson RX595 and was banging my head against the same wall as you are now. I was able to get it to be networked by purchasing a ZyXel NPS-520 MFP print server, flashing it with a third party firmware, and downloading that third party's program to make it work with Mac OS X (ZyXel doesn't have a Mac compatible program unfortunately, but the chipset's the same as the other company). I can let you know the name of the other company, but as I'm not at home I don't have it readily available.

PS: The share printers over WAN only allows you to print to your printer from outside of your network, and actually does not do anything to allow functionality of that printer on your own network.

 

[Let's Sekuhara!]

The multifunction printer functions other than printing are not supported by the Time Capsule, AEBS or AEX USB port.

Nooooooo!
(Who dropped the ball on that one?)

OK, well thank you for informing me if this crucial piece of info. I will stop banging my head now. Luckily my computer is a MacBook, so it's easy to just carry over to the printer and plug in. I just though that since I have a wireless network and a printer that can be plugged into the Time Capsule that I may as well try it. I guess for scanning it is a no-go.

It's not imperative that I scan wirelessly (it's just for home use, not office). But it would have been nice. Anyway, if you remember the name of that company I'd still be curious to know.

* What's sad is that I could have scanned all the documents I wanted to by now had I gone with the tried-and-true wired method. That's what I get for trying to be cutting edge.

 

[skorpien]

Glad to be of help. I just figured I could save somebody else the frustration I had to deal with when figuring this out.

The company I was referring to is called Edimax. They have a print server (the PS-1206MF) which uses the exact same chipset as the ZyXel print server. You can update the firmware of the ZyXel with the Edimax firmware and it will work perfectly (actually, it works even better). And that page I provided you with has drivers for Windows (2000, XP, 2003 and Vista) and Mac OS X. Although with Mac, you need to connect to the print server before being able to print or scan, whereas the Windows version automatically opens a connection for printing (but you still need to establish the connection for scanning).

 

[hildaw]

How To Make Time Capsule Recognize Your Printer

I just managed to get T.C. to recognize my old Epson Stylus Photo RX620, after hours of trying different methods. Its so easy when you know how.
If anyone is interested, I would be pleased to post the informtion.

 

[Heb1228]

If anyone is interested, I would be pleased to post the informtion.

Why not just go ahead and post it in case someone needs the answer to that months from now and comes across this thread in a search?