Accessing USB printers via an Ethernet Switch

[rob_100]

Hope someone can help, I want to use 2 USB printers through an ethernet switch on my network and I dont know how to do this - do I need the IP addresses of the printers or switch and then goto "add a printer" and then somehow enter their ip addresses? I havent got a clue on this really.

Currently both printers are going through 1 pc where 3 other pc's can access them, but when this pc is off the printers are no longer available hence I want to run them through the ethernet switch on my network.

I got a couple of female USB to male ethernet adpaters and then plugged the 2 printers into the ethernet switch and I cant see them when trying to "add a printer" by using the "add printer wizard" on XP. Am I being a fool and this cant be done, or can this be done and I just dont know how?

Thanks for your time
Rob

[johnwill]

You need a print server that supports USB printers, you can't connect USB devices to Ethernet and expect them to work. Frankly, you could easily toast either the USB interface or the Ethernet trying to do this!

[rob_100]

Thanks for the info, yeh I remember thinking about this before now and I decided that I needed yet another pc to run the printers thorugh, which I didnt want to do, although a printer server as you suggest sounds like an excellent the way to go, I found this one here http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119458 at ebuyer which looks quite good, expensive though for a small network but I'll hunt about and hopefully find something cheaper.

[johnwill]

They should be available for less than that, though in your country things may be different.