Sharing a Printer Set up

[yorkshirepudding]

Hi Folks just some advice from you if you wouldnt mind!

ill be setting up 3 new PCs and a Print/fax/copy machine in a new office, the office will have broadband, with a wireless router no doubt

how can i set up the PCs which will be individual workstations to share the 1 printer?

i had a few theories

1 can i connect the printer to the Broadband router?
2 can i just use a USB Router/Hub and cables to do it? (cable length a prob here maybe?!)
3 just set up one PC to the printer and allow sharing? (can the sharing be done by the broadband router?

ive not had much experiance with broadband routers so please be gentle!

many thanks!

 

[TCouch]

The first recommendation, I would make would require the Printer/Fax/Scanner (MFP) to have a network card. In that case, yes, attach it to the router. It will most likely have to be a cabled connection, as I've only seen a few products with built in wireless. By doing it this way, the device will be available to all users at all times. You'll need to give the device a static IP address, that is outside the scope of the IP addresses that your router will issue via DHCP. DHCP is ok for the computers, but never recommended for devices like printers, because of the possibility that the IP address could change at some time in the future, causing users not to be able to use the device until it relocates back to the usable IP.

As for cable length, I wouldn't be too worried. The limit is 100 meters of Cat5e.

Now, if your MFP doesn't have a network card built in, you could opt for an external network card, like an HP Jet Direct, or Print Server. This will give you the ability to attach this to the network, and use it in the above configuration.

And if you have no other choice, you can attach it to one of the PC's and share it that way. Understand that traffic to/from that PC will increase, but being only 3 on the network, it shouldn't be noticable. The downside is that the computer that it is attached to will need to be on for the others to use the device.

Timothy N. Couch
A1 Printech
Anchorage, AK

 

[yorkshirepudding]

brilliant thanks for the help! thats cleared up a few problems i was worried about!