Use the E-Tech Broadband Router's print server
Feb 06, '06 05:47:00AM
Contributed by: mvmaastricht
I bought a dirt-cheap E-Tech Broadband Router with USB Printer Server (Model RTPR01), which officially supports the Mac platform only on the routing part of the product. There's no mention in the manuals about the built-in print server being compatible with Mac OS X, but I managed to make it work in a, for me, quite unexpected way. Note that I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.4 on a G3 iMac and G3 iBook. Now I can use the print server to print via my home network on an Epson Stylus Color 760. Here's how I did it:
- Download and install Gimp-Print 5.0.0-beta2 or later (not Gimp-Print 4.2.7, which doesn't work for reasons that I don't know).
- Add a printer in the Printer Setup Utility and then click the 'IP Printer' button.
- Type the IP-address of the E-Tech router (which is 192.168.1.1 by default, but can be changed in anything you need).
- If you want, type a name and a location.
- Choose a suitable printer driver at the 'Print Using' drop-down menu.
- Choose 'HP Jet Direct - Socket' at the 'Protocol' drop-down menu.
- Click the 'Add' button in the Printer Browser dialogue.
Voilá! Your E-Tech Router/Print Server should work properly (supposing you connected all the cables properly). To me it was quite a surprise that it worked (after hours of trial-and-error) because I am printing with an Epson printer -- so I wouldn't expect the 'HP Jet Direct - Socket' protocol to work.
If your printer is still not working and you are using the E-Tech Router/Print Server behind an already working DHCP-server, make sure the first three octets (and only the first three octets) of the IP address of the E-Tech Router / Print Server match the first three octets of the IP addres of your DHCP server. In that case, you should also disable the built-in DHCP Server of the E-Tech Router/Print Server to avoid conflicts.
Comments (2)
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2006013105471620