Simple Bluetooth Printing Question

[bear1973]

I have an older, but still very reliable Brother HL-5040 laser printer that continues to serve me well.

Is there a way to print wirelessly through Bluetooth with this computer from my new iMac. I'm moving into a new office and don't want to run a USB cable all the way to the other end of the room.

Do I just buy one of these Donger's on Ebay for $10? Or do I need something else? Or is this impossible and I need to buy a new printer?

Thanks for your help.

 

[bear1973]

Or....

Duh.... Do I just buy an airport express?

Thanks!

 

[mkrishnan]

So you have an iMac of some sort, with onboard bluetooth, correct?

And you have an HL-5040, no bluetooth.

You have several options. Basically, you can either buy a Wifi print server or you can buy a Bluetooth print server.

Advantages: Wifi -- accessible to all wifi devices over a longer range, more expensive.

Bluetooth -- offers zero config even on Windows, I think? But Wifi offers zero config on Windows and Macs if you use Bonjour (by default on Macs).

I would personally go with WiFi. You can use basically any of the 802.11g or 802.11n Apple routers, for instance -- pick up a used Airport Extreme Base Station or Airport Express. They all support attaching a printer via USB. Then you can either have this create a new network that you use just for printing, or join an existing network. You can even replace your existing router with it, possibly.