make a usb wired printer wireless?

unwashed potato!

unwashed potato!

unwashed potato!

Soldato
Joined
12 Feb 2006
Posts
18,102
Location
Surrey
i don't have a place for my printer to be close to my desktop. at the moment i store my printer the other side of the room in a cupboard but it's annoying each time I use it to have to move it, plug it in, use it and then put it back.

Is there any way to have a wireless usb attachment that makes the printer appear wired while being wireless and then just powered on the other side of the room?
 
unwashed potato! said:
i don't have a place for my printer to be close to my desktop. at the moment i store my printer the other side of the room in a cupboard but it's annoying each time I use it to have to move it, plug it in, use it and then put it back.

Is there any way to have a wireless usb attachment that makes the printer appear wired while being wireless and then just powered on the other side of the room?
Click to expand...

Plug it into your router?
 
I think there are a few options to look at. What connections does your printer have? Or what model printer is it? I don't know anything about google nest / wifi / router. What ports / connections does it have?

Depending on the model of printer you might be able to connect a usb wifi dongle to it (either made by the printer manufacturer or a random third party device that supports the printer) instead of connecting it by usb directly to the computer. I think hornetstinger was saying that if you connect the printer by USB to your router the router would then present the printer to any network connected devices. There are also USB to ethernet adaptors that might work if you have any spare ethernet ports either on the router or on the PC / laptop.

If you let us know what connections are available on your printer and what are available on your network there might be some ideas as to how the two could be connected. You also might be able to just get a much longer USB cable?

Cheers.
 
Depends how techy you want to get for it, but you could get a very simple device like a Raspberry Pi or a super small form factor Windows device and have it connected to the printer and your wireless network, sharing the connection.
 
unwashed potato! said:
with a usb to cat5 cable? my router is a stupid google nest one so doesn't have any spare spots, but i have a switch if that could work?
Click to expand...

Nah - needs a USB port, which your router doesn't have but some do.

You can get a wireless USB print server fairly cheap which will do the job (or your printer may have an Ethernet port) - just remember to secure it so random people can't send stuff to your printer.
 
Last edited:
I looked into this a while back but ended up just biting the bullet and getting a laserjet with built in wireless connectivity.

Added bonus is it supports AirPrint so I can print directly from my phone now also. Well worth the £80 outlay imo.
 
Used to do this years back. Think back then it was a Belkin USB print server adapter I got which allowed me to wire it up to my ADSL router (was on a massive 500mb Nildram connection at the time)
 
Depending on your current printer it may be cheaper or more cost effective to buy an already wireless printer to replace it.

I understand adding a wireless capability to your existing printer presents an interesting challenge, but it might not be worth it.
 

Samsung Xpress M2026W A4 Mono Wireless​


Turns out I may have a wireless printer already :cry:

I seem to remember now that the issue was getting the wps to work with Google nest wifi was the issue when I bought this like 8 years ago
 
unwashed potato! said:

Samsung Xpress M2026W A4 Mono Wireless​


Turns out I may have a wireless printer already :cry:

I seem to remember now that the issue was getting the wps to work with Google nest wifi was the issue when I bought this like 8 years ago
Click to expand...

Happy days :) check the firmware is up to date on the printer and router if possible as that will often fix any WPS setup issues.
 
There are other methods to connect it to your wireless network. WPS was the easiest I found but there are other ways that will work.

If I recall, there is a means of connecting it wired and then making it wireless so to speak.
 
unwashed potato! said:
turns out google nest wifi doesn't support WPS this was the issue. so back to square one
Click to expand...

I had this issue with the aircon units in my house. For whatever reason, the standard way to connect them doesn't work, so WPS was the only alternative. But it's such an outdated and insecure thing that no modern Wifi uses it. My workaround was to use my old Asus router, set the Wifi credentials to the same as my normal Wifi, connect them to the Asus with WPS, then turn off the Asus and they connect to my normal network using the same credentials.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom