Network Printing

[vandevanterSH]

I have been a bit frustrated, over the past few days,  trying to get my Epson 4880 printing from my wireless network.  The "signal" path is MacPro 10.6 > AirPort Extreme > AirPort Express > 4880.  The first problem may be cable type;  connecting the AirPort to the 4880, do I use a "straight-through" or "cross-over" cable?  In the printer set up do I use "Auto" for IP address or manual?

This shouldn't be a problem and I am doing something stupid, help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Steve

[Justan]

You should use a standard ethernet cable.

"Auto" will try to find your DHCP server and get an ip, subnet and other info from the dhcp server. In home and small scale office setups, the dhcp server is typically a service that runs in your broadband router.

[PeterAit]

You should use a standard ethernet cable.

"Auto" will try to find your DHCP server and get an ip, subnet and other info from the dhcp server. In home and small scale office setups, the dhcp server is typically a service that runs in your broadband router.

If he could run Ethernet, I doubt he'd be asking about wireless.

I cannot answer the OP's question, but I will say that when I got my 4880 there was no easy way to run cable to it, so I looked into wireless printing. Everything I read indicated that it was almost always a huge hassle and very difficult to get working properly and reliably. As a result I was motivated to sweet-talk my wife, who is a lot smaller than I am, to venture into the small crawl space under the house to run ethernet.

If you really cannot run a cable, I wonder if wireless some form of ethernet would be better that a wireless connection designed specifically for printers.

[Wayne Fox]

I have been a bit frustrated, over the past few days,  trying to get my Epson 4880 printing from my wireless network.  The "signal" path is MacPro 10.6 > AirPort Extreme > AirPort Express > 4880.  The first problem may be cable type;  connecting the AirPort to the 4880, do I use a "straight-through" or "cross-over" cable?  In the printer set up do I use "Auto" for IP address or manual?

This shouldn't be a problem and I am doing something stupid, help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Steve

A standard ethernet cable.  The printer should be fine as set by factory.  Be sure you have enabled the ethernet port on your airport express in the airport setup utility... it may be disabled by default.

Of course you also have to have a DHCP server available to all of your devices for this to work in auto mode.  Your DSL or cable modem is handling this but some of them have limits on the number of devices. You can enable your main airport to furnish DHCP addresses but make sure you don't have 2 devices providing DHCP.

edit .. put DNS when I meant DHCP

[rugydp]

I have been a bit frustrated, over the past few days,  trying to get my Epson 4880 printing from my wireless network.  The "signal" path is MacPro 10.6 > AirPort Extreme > AirPort Express > 4880.  The first problem may be cable type;  connecting the AirPort to the 4880, do I use a "straight-through" or "cross-over" cable?  In the printer set up do I use "Auto" for IP address or manual?

Hi Steve

I have the same setup with a Epson 3800. I rember to find it tricky to set up but everthing works like a charm now. There might be other setups but here is mine:

DHCP
------
If you have multiple devices connecting to your network and everything worked fine until now you don't have any problems with DHCP. Just leave it for the moment.
The most important thing with DHCP is that only one device does this job in a network or it can get messy. I have a ADSL router doing this job. Apple calls it "Connection Sharing: Distribute a range of IP addresses" in the Airport Utility. But again, only one device, please.

WDS
-----
The Wireless Distributions Service makes it possible to extend a wireless network with multiple wireless access points. You can choose between a main, a relay and a remote. In our setup you need a main (APX) and a remote (Airport Express - APE). Relay is only used to extend the system, useless for us. On the remote other device can connect by wireless or ethernet.

- Set the wireless mode of APX and APE to "Participate in a WDS network" (see attached jpg)
[attachment=19869:apx_ape_wireless.jpg]


- Set the WDS mode of your APX to "WDS Main" and enter the AirportID of your APE as WDS Remotes (see jpg)
[attachment=19870:apx_wds.jpg]

- Set the WDS mode of your APS to "WDS Remote" and enter the AirportID of your APX as WDS Main (see jpg)
[attachment=19871:ape_wds.jpg]

Just remember to take your AirportIDs and not mine ;-) You find them on the main panel of your Airport Utility when choosing a device.


Printer
-------
I can't remember changing anything on the printer side. It was set to DHCP and I use a regular ethernet cable, not crossed. It took some time and some on/off cycles until it picked up an IP address and showed up on my MacBook. Just test the configuration by adding a printer in the OS X printer panel. Your Epson should be available over Bonjour and/or IP.


Listen, it was a very tiring experience setting this up. So many pieces that might fail. But suddenly it worked and since then it never stopped working.
Get back to me if you have further question. I hope I can help.

Wish you luck ;-)
rdp