Queuing Airport Printer Jobs

[shortmdx2]

Hi

With an Airport Express-connected printer, is there any way to configure things such that:

- I can leave the Airport Express on (as a base station)
- I can leave the printer off by default (so as not to waste energy)
- I can select 'print' within an application
- The print job queues
- I can then switch on the printer and the job will begin processing

Is this possible with an Airport Express-connected printer?

The problem is that the printer is a fair walk from my office and I have to walk there to switch it on and then walk back to print and then walk back to collect the print out (lazy I know).

Thanks

 

[slapguts]

Just tried it with my set-up, and it auto-queud the print job until I switched the printer on.

So, I can say for sure it works with an HP Deskjet 6540, an Airport Extreme on Snow Leopard with the latest drivers. Other than that, no clue.

Are you thinking of buying, or do you have this stuff already? I'd say just give it a shot.

 

[shortmdx2]

Hi

This is my current set-up (not something I'm planning on purchasing).

When the printer is not switched on, I get the following error on OS X:

> Unable to send 8192 bytes of print data! (USB write error)

> Communication Failure: The computer is no longer able to communicate with your printer. Turn the printer off, check your printer connections and check for printer errors, and turn the printer back on.

...It then pauses the printer - giving a resume option. However, I can only resume from the mac itself, which means travelling to the printer to switch it on, coming back to resume the printer and then travelling back to the printer to get the print out (of equivalent flavours all requiring two trips to the printer).

On my Windows XP machine, I get the helpful "Error - Printing - Restarting" state which simply is unrecoverable (you have to cancel the job, switch the printer on, print again and then it works).

Any ideas how to get the job to wait when the printer is off and to retry every x seconds or when the printer is available?

Thanks

 

[shortmdx2]

OK - so through experimenting I've found the following:

- When the USB cable is disconnected from the Airport Express:
- Printing works as I would like - i.e. it queues the job and says:
"Waiting for the printer to become available..."

- When the USB cable is connected and the printer has been switched on and then off since the Airport started up:
- It misbehaves and says:
"Unable to send 8192 bytes of print data! (USB write error)"

So, if I unplug the USB cable after switching off the printer, then all works ok.

Any ideas why this might be happening? Is it down to my specific printer (I've tried with different USB cables)? A HP Photosmart C4280?

Thanks