Airport Base Station + Dlink = working together?
Greetings!
I'm currently trying to find a way to share a USB printer in a different room in the house.
The problem is that the Airport Extreme Base Station is in another room, and I need the printer in the other room.
I would like to use the AEBS as the print server in the other room, but the broadband line is only available in the room the AEBS is currently in.
is there any way to use another wireless router [we have a DLink wireless router] in the room where the broadband comes in at, and put the AEBS in the other room, and have the AEBS grab and serve the internet connection [instead of the DLink] .... ? (basically, using the Dlink to extend the broadband range in the house wirelessly) ......
Thanks!
I'm currently trying to find a way to share a USB printer in a different room in the house.
The problem is that the Airport Extreme Base Station is in another room, and I need the printer in the other room.
I would like to use the AEBS as the print server in the other room, but the broadband line is only available in the room the AEBS is currently in.
is there any way to use another wireless router [we have a DLink wireless router] in the room where the broadband comes in at, and put the AEBS in the other room, and have the AEBS grab and serve the internet connection [instead of the DLink] .... ? (basically, using the Dlink to extend the broadband range in the house wirelessly) ......
Thanks!
Comments
i don't think it will work...
What you are trying to do is called WDS (Wireless Distribution System), and as far as i know only Apple Extreme base stations can do that. In that scenario, you set-up one BS as 'main' unit, then another as 'remote' it connects wirelessly to main, and shares it's internet connection, extending airport network at the same time. This way you have a SEAMLESS network connection when moving around, your mac will pickup signal from closest BS.
What you are trying to do is not possible as d-link BS does not do WDS, so in other words Apple BS won't be able to connect to it wirelessly.
(i'm 99% sure, but call apple, and ask them if their BS can be configured as 'remote' BS, but 'main' BS being non-apple unit).
So, looks like this is not gonna work, but there are options, first you can buy an wireless/wired bridge. these come in many varieties, it can be bridging wireless/lan, or wireless/usb.
If your printer has only USB then obviously wireless/usb bridge should do the job. If you also have network port on your printer, you could use wireless/lan bridge.
Basically these are devices that are connected wirelessly to your airport network, but have LAN or USB ports so you can connect printers/computers to them.
HTH.
That's primarily all I would like to do, because the printer has to be in the other room, and the broadband connection only comes in in another room.
I'll look into this also
Just google for USB wireless bridge. Also check recent macnn news (maybe from last week), as i remember something about new product designed to work with macs.
I have never used USB bridges as all our printers have network cards, but i'm sure it's the same principle...
In short, wireless bridge is another network device, it has it's own IP address, and you just connect your printer to it's usb port, which makes your printer accessible over wireless network.
When you set your printers in OS X, instead of USB port you set it up as tcp/ip printer. Your spool files are being delivered to wireless bridge which simply outputs them to it's usb port.
good luck