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Setting up a HP Laserjet on a bridged Apple Extreme/ Express network (updated)

Friday, April 22, 2005

I think the biggest trouble most tech people will face when coming to the Mac is “overmanipulation”: We try to do too much beforehand. I’m an overmanipulator, and this is my story.

We’ve done some upgrading at Casa de Trascapoulos and the new wireless network had an upgrade. We doubled the effective range in the old house by adding an Airport Express, making it the primary base station, and then moving the Airport Express to the upper bedroom-cum-hardware dump, where it LANs out to a HP 4100tn laser printer.

That’s the short version - the long version is a bit twistier.

First I tried to do this with an Asus WL500g wireless router. The benefit was that it had a parallel printer port, a 4-port router, USB and it was only 50 euros (59 with shipping). I was told the HP’s network card didn’t work and it wasn’t very reactive when I first tried it, so I assumed it’s was dead and decided to go parallel. And you know what that say about when you “assume”...*

As a word of advice - fuggedabout it with anything but an Asus network. As a rule, WDS bridges are almost impossible across different manufacturers, and while the Airport Express was happy to see the Asus (and vica versa), and they could negotiate the 64-bit WPA key, they couldn’t handshake. Constant timeouts. Just consider it a lockout “feature” - if a manufacturer is going to drop their pants with a cheap price to get you to buy their router, they’re going to anything they can to keep you buying their hardware. Bridging is their hook.

Being that I bought the printer lightly used for - get this - 1 euro, I figured I had a little lattitude on buying a wireless router…

To be fair, I only tried the Asus - it’s possible the the Airport would bridge with a Linksys or Buffalo system, but I’m no longer willing to fuss more than a few days to get some 3rd-party network solution working. I sold the Asus for what I paid for it and bought an Airport Express. Setup was brilliantly simple - where I had to be prepared ahead of time with the Asus - MAC addresses, passwords, WPA and access lists, etc - with the Airport I just clicked 3 times:  WDS button, the plus button to add the other station and the update button. Linked. Once the basestation restarted, I could select it, give it the same settings as the existing system and reset it once more to be a masked 802.11g node.

But the printer wouldn’t print. Of course. Bonjour - previously known as “Rendezvous” and more commonly “ZeroConf”, saw the printer in the Setup window, found the correct driver and let me add it, but it would never connect accross to the correct address. Even if I manually changed the address to the correct IP range, subnet, etc…nada.

Part of the Asus setup had me change some settings in the JetDirect 610 card and the printer itself, so rethinking my strategy of giving it exactly what I thought it should need, I hit the reset button. Cold reboot - factory settings. Whammo.

And whaddya know…The printer setup found the printer again, set up the network addressing in the JetPrint itself, found the correct driver, etc. All I had to do was click on the printer name, agree with the driver, and click Save. And I was saved - the damn thing started printing perfectly. Everything was set-up for me.

Sometimes less it more. You have to relax and let the Mac work FOR you.  So if anyone has a problem with an Airport network, do LESS. Hit the reset button, let the thing configure and THEN tweak.

Update: In my hammering around for information, I did come across a good source for the WL-500g: the Chupa forums - http://www.forum.chupa.nl/index.php. Definately worth stopping in if you prefer to fight the good fight with the Asus…

* Note: Who remembers the TV version of the “Odd Couple”? Quoth Felix: “When you ‘assume’, you make an ‘ass’ of ‘u’ and ‘me’...” **Sigh**...no-one writes like that anymore…

Posted by admin on 04/22 at 02:03 AM
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