I have set up two printers on our home workgroup using Airport Express as a a print server. One printer is an Epson Stylus Photo R320. I have set it up both with an older Airport Express using version 6.3 of the firmware, and also with a new version using an 802.11n Airport Express. It works fine. I have also tried to set up an HP Laserjet P1006 the same way. It worked for a bit, and has since stopped. I currently have it connected to the older 802.11 a/g airport. It doesn't seem to function with the Airport Express. When I print to the HP P1006, the print job (even for a test print under Vista) just disappears.
I have used bonjour successfully for prior connections. However, part of what I am trying to do is to make it so that I can print from my Windows Mobile PDA using Jetcet printing software. Since Bonjour SFAIK is not available on a Pocket PC, I would like to set up the printers with Airport Express without using Bonjour, so that it is easier to set-up Jetcet printing.
Thoughts?
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I may have to continue to hang the printer off a pc -which was our original configuration - but the goal was to be able to shut down the pc and not lose printer access.
What is odd, though, is that Bonjour created SOME temporary access. One would think that would mean that there should be some settings that allow the printer to be accessed.
Here is how I have addressed this issue to date. First, I recently incorporated Windows Home Server, in part to provide automatic back-ups to the Windows machines in my home, and in part to coordinate with Vista Media Center. (To do Mac backups - since Time Machine won't work in this situation - I used Crashplan to back the Mac's up to the Home Server.)
At any rate, since the Home Server was now available, an always on, I used Bonjour along with the Airport Express to wirelessly "hang" the printers from the Home Server, and then shared the printers from the Home Server.
you should be able to share a printer on the computer it is installed, and then when installing a printer under System Preferences|Printer and Fax, you should see that pinter and be able to select it under Printer and Fax on the machine you want to print from the mac you print from will send the document to the computer that it is installed on, provided print sharing is on, and that printer will act as a print server and print the document over Bonjour
As noted in earlier comments, the goal was to continue to have the printers accessible - as noted in these comments the soluton of connecting them to a computer and sharing them generally fails to meet this requirement because that computer may be shut off. The advantage of using the WHS as host is that it is typically on, as was also outlined previously.
The issue being addressed was not a Mac issue.
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by: Darr247Posted on 2008-12-27 at 04:38:17ID: 23248113
Can you connect it directly to a networked computer and share it successfully like that?
In my experience, HP USB printers don't play well with most (non-HP) print servers. I'm convinced they do something non-standard with the USB ports so they WON'T work with other brands of print server (most non-HP print servers won't even 'see' the HP printers). The same models with network support built in (typically have N suffixed onto the model number) are $60-$100 more, but JetDirect print servers list for $130 and up (the $130 model is USB 1.1 and is being discontinued, btw)... and unfortunately, I don't find any JetDirect print servers with the P1006 in their compatibility charts, either.