Wireless printing

[Shifty69]

My wife has a home office setup with a printer and scanner on my desk I have the new i Mac setup and sometimes I use a wireless laptop around the house. I would like to give all these computers access to my wife's printer and scanner without needing to turn her computer on. Is there a solution to plug these USB devices to a hub and then to the existing wireless router that she also has? I want whatever device/hub we use to allow simultaneous access by spooling jobs etc. rather than waiting to establish connection like the Belkin USB HUB? Can someone help me with this?

Much appreciated

 

[milk242]

apple airport express would be good for printing.. if you want to add other things (hard drive) the apple airport extreme might be a good alternative.

 

[gsahli]

I fully agree with milk242 that the Airport Express is the best choice. Unfortunately, because of the sad state of printer drivers on OS X, somewhere between 5 and 10% of printers don't work with Airport Express.
http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/1013.html

There are driver issues with nearly all non-postscript printers when trying to print via a non-apple print server. Most non-postscript drivers were written for local USB connection Only. Airport Express/Extreme get around this by implementing USB port redirection (Apple proprietary software).

 

[milk242]

You could also wait for Belkin to release OS X drivers for their network usb hub (supposedly this month). They do USB port virtualization.. making your computer think its connected directly to the device.

 

[Shifty69]

Thanks

Thanks for the info, I already have apple express hooked up elsewhere in the house. I think I'll wait and see what Belkin offers next month otherwise maybe apple extreme. Thanks for your help.

 

[imac/cheese]

I am not sure if this is true or not, but I have heard that sometimes a printer/scanner combo won't scan through Airport Express. Your post did not say if it was a combo unit or not. If anyone has any info on this I would like to hear the answer as well.

 

[milk242]

Usually you can't use the multifunction printers.. lot of print servers don't support the scanner part of the printer including the airport express. Printsevers will usually say multifunction support on the box and they will give you a list of multifunction printers they do support. Once belkin releases their OS X drivers for the network usb hub, that in my opinion will be the best print server on the market because of their usb virtualization. Downside to the belkin hub is that only one user can connect to one device at a time.

 

[GoCubsGo]

Not to revive a really old thread, but it appears Belkin never released OSX drivers for their network HUB. While Time Capsule actually replaces any OSX user's need for the Belkin product, it would still be great to have had options.

 

[Cliff3]

Not to revive a really old thread, but it appears Belkin never released OSX drivers for their network HUB. While Time Capsule actually replaces any OSX user's need for the Belkin product, it would still be great to have had options.

Yes, they did and the drivers are available for download from their support site. I am using one with my scanner, iPod, and a few other USB devices. I don't know if it works with Leopard as I am still on 10.4.11.

From what I've read it's kind of iffy with drives and is better suited to printers and other peripherals.

 

[Sunnzy]

Not trying to Hijack this topic but may I ask how does printer drivers work with the Airport Express? Does the driver sit on the Airport Express and you can use whatever OS to send files to it to print, or just the OS has to have the driver itself?

In my case I had a printer that required me to install drivers on my Mac, and from memory those are open source drivers if it makes any difference.

Also I was wondering if there is going to be a new revision of Airport Express with wireless 802.11n support coming out any time soon?

 

[gsahli]

Airport Express doesn't have any driver required - the firmware allows it to act as a Mac for print sharing - any USB output driver will be able to print to the Express-connected printer.

Don't know about 802.11n on Express, but I suspect it is hardware limited to 802.11g max.

 

[amactec]

My issue is slightly different, as I can get my printer, photosmart 8250, to print over new airport extreme, but only when macs are connected with wire. macs surf internet over wireless, but not printing. Printer is plugged into AE USB port, and shows in AU. Anyone figure out a way to surf AND print over wireless? Prints fine if I connect macs to AE with wire. Kinda defeats the purpose of using a wireless router though.