Wireless Network away from LAN

[gshaw]

Hi all,

 

We're an Adult Education College who run courses out in Community Centres as well as from our main site. We've just bought 15 new laptops from Stone and also have 3 wireless printers we've had for a while.

 

Question is, what's the best way to get all 3 printers working without needing too much kit needing to be installed each time? Tried ad-hoc originally but with 3 printers it's messy. Need to have something that's basically plug & play as there's no IT Support for these classes. Got an old access point lying about but that's no good as it needs to be connected to a LAN so looks like I'll prob need to order something...

 

Laptops are locked down with HDGuard so once they've been configured it should stick, just need a simple wireless solution, any suggestions?

 

Just noticed this across the top bar

 

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[plexer]

hmm interesting.

 

I'm trying to think of how the setup could work and it's difficult as I don't think that setting the access point with say wpa-psk or wep depending on what the printers support and then the laptops would allow the seperate radio devices to contact each other.

 

This is the privacy settings on the access point which you may be able to change.

 

How about plugging the 3 printers into a switch and then the access point into the switch as well.

 

Set the access point as a dhcp server if possible but give the printers static ip's.

 

Once the laptops connect to the wireless network they should be able to be setup to print.

 

Ben

[gshaw]

(It's a Deskjet 5850 btw)

 

Got a newer D-Link access point to have a play with, the retro b-based Netgear with USB config is well past its sell by date now!

 

Works fine with no WEP \ WPA on, now to try it protected...

 

Edit: working fine between laptop > access point > printer under WPA-PSK, what was the problem you were describing above, do you mean we'll have problems when more than one laptop tries to connect?

 

Cheers,

 

Gerrard