LPT only printer to desktop 50' away

[brisco]

Hello all, got an interesting dilema in my network world.

I have a stand alone PC in one office that has to connect to a printer in another room. The printer only can be accessed by an LPT port. The PC has an available LPT port and several USB 2.0 ports. To run any type of cable between the two would require about 50' of cord. Obviously there is no such thing as a 50' LPT cord or USB cord. What would you all say is the simplest option of connecting these two together?

 

[Fardringle]

The "simplest" answer depends on what you already have.

If you do not have an existing network, use a wired or wireless print server/router connected directly to the LPT port on the printer. PC connected directly to the print server/router via wired ethernet or wireless adapter.

If the PC is already on a network, you can simply attach a network print server to the printer (HP JetDirect would work great) and plug it in to the existing network and print to the print server over the network. Or you could attach a spare PC directly to the printer and put it on the network and share the printer through Windows...

 

[brisco]

Fardringle,

I like your idea on the wireless print server but I do not know of one that is made with an LPT port. All the ones I have seen are USB only. I'm not sure if using a LPT to USB converter in that scenario would work. Do you know of such a product with an LPT port?

Unfortunately this PC is not on my network, nor can it be. If that was the case it would be a snap. I can't allow it on the net for productivity reasons but I do need it to have access to a printer.

 

[wseyller]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833127128

Just FYI Parallel printer communication would not work at a distance of 50 feet. I've always heard 15 feet is about the max to use.

 

[skyking]

Long LPT cables work OK for me.
I've got 50's and 100's if you need them, brand new. they have worked on every printer I've tried.

 

[wseyller]

Originally posted by: skyking
Long LPT cables work OK for me.
I've got 50's and 100's if you need them, brand new. they have worked on every printer I've tried.

I guess you can believe everything you read.

 

[skyking]

TESTED: HP laserjet 4, 4 plus, 3 different models of canon bubble jet.
WORKING: an okidata 9 pin that prints for 8 hours at a shot once a month, a sharp ML-350 that puts out a thousand or so pages as a printer a week.
Those are on a 100' and a 50' respectively right now, at one of my clients. They report no problems.
Any questions?

Depending on the model of printer, an HP jetdirect 2591A on a chunk of ethernet back to the network would be OK too.

 

[Fardringle]

I've had old dot matrix printers work reasonably well on very long parallel cables, but have never been able to get any ink jet or laser printer to work consistently (sometimes will work, other times not) because they require a much higher signal integrity, as well as bi-directional communication in many cases.

If brisco's printer is a dot matrix or similar, then it may work. Otherwise I wouldn't recommend it as the headaches simply won't be worth the potential effort saved by stringing the parallel cable rather than using a more reliable solution.

 

[skyking]

The ML-350 is a laser printer module on a big copier. It seems to work fine, and I know it is bi-directional.

 

[Vegito]

the dlink is cheaper

i have the linksys one, its on a g, support both parallel & usb at the same time.. was like 125

http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=33&scid=37&prid=584