WiFi Printer Networking Question

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FenFox

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I have an EPSON ET-2850 WiFi Printer which is located on the opposite side of the house from my router.

I want all of the computers in my home to be able to access the printer so I bought a TP-Link Powerline WiFi Extender AV1000.

For testing purposes, I positioned a laptop halfway between my router and the printer. The laptop was able to see the printer and successfully print.

However, my desktop PC (which is across the other side of the house from the printer in a room near my router) can't detect the printer. My desktop is wired, not on WiFi but I don't imagine that should make a difference?

I also tested a second laptop in my room and it could not see the printer either....BUT when I moved this laptop closer to the printer (where the other laptop is), I was able to detect the printer, I can now successfully print from my room. So this seems to indicate a range issue upon establishing an initial connection?

Any idea how I can get my desktop PC to detect the printer?

EDIT: I solved the problem.
 
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The powerline adapter probably is on a separate subnet and is doing it's own dhcp. I think you'd have to use the same subnet, disable dhcp on the extender, and change some other settings so clients get their IP from your router...but I haven't done that before.

If they are on different subnets, you won't be able to auto-detect the printer, but you may be able to manually enter the IP address.
 
Nobu said:
The powerline adapter probably is on a separate subnet and is doing it's own dhcp. I think you'd have to use the same subnet, disable dhcp on the extender, and change some other settings so clients get their IP from your router...but I haven't done that before.

If they are on different subnets, you won't be able to auto-detect the printer, but you may be able to manually enter the IP address.
Click to expand...

Well, 2 laptops can detect the printer, but it seems to be a range issue when trying to detect the printer initially. When I moved the laptop from my room (where it could not see the printer) closer to the printer, it automatically detected the printer. So I would think that when I move the laptop back to my room that I would lose connection to the printer, but I don't. I can now print from my room. This doesn't really make sense to me. The only device I have left that I want to connect to the printer is my desktop PC but it has no WiFi in it and I don't exactly wanna unplug it and move it closer to the printer to maybe establish that initial connection?
 
Oh, some routers have the wireless devices and wired devices separated so it might not be able to connect even with the correct IP address. I don't know if there's any way to get around that.
 
Nobu said:
Oh, some routers have the wireless devices and wired devices separated so it might not be able to connect even with the correct IP address. I don't know if there's any way to get around that.
Click to expand...
Nobu said:
Find your printer on one of your laptops using the steps here: https://nordvpn.com/blog/how-to-find-printer-ip-address/

Then try manually adding the printer on the desktop using that ip address.
Click to expand...

I paired the TP-Link with my router via the WPS button on the router, so the TP-Link should be on the same network. But I'll try to see if I can manually add the printer.
 
Can't you hard wire the printer? Then you can just set up a powerline network and everyone can access the printer via your normal wifi (which I'm assuming everything that needs to can currently access)
 
SamirD said:
Can't you hard wire the printer? Then you can just set up a powerline network and everyone can access the printer via your normal wifi (which I'm assuming everything that needs to can currently access)
Click to expand...
Well, the printer is accessible from my normal WiFi I believe? Or maybe I'm confused. It's using the same name as my router because I pressed the WPS button on the router to pair the WiFi. I can't hardwire the printer via ethernet as it doesn't have an ethernet port.
 
FenFox said:
Well, the printer is accessible from my normal WiFi I believe? Or maybe I'm confused. It's using the same name as my router because I pressed the WPS button on the router to pair the WiFi. I can't hardwire the printer via ethernet as it doesn't have an ethernet port.
Click to expand...
I think the problem is that the laptops are connecting directly to your printer via wifi vs to your wifi that's connected to the printer. Hence why your desktop won't work.

What you really need is a wifi to ethernet bridge so that you can add a port to the printer and then it just connects into your network. The wifi is confusing devices since there's already another wifi.
 
FenFox said:
I paired the TP-Link with my router via the WPS button on the router, so the TP-Link should be on the same network. But I'll try to see if I can manually add the printer.
Click to expand...
Please disable WPS it is insecure and a quick way to have your wifi network compromised if someone around you wants to.
 
Most home networks are just a flat 192.168.1.0/24 or similar. Your printer should receive an IP in this range, your clients connecting should receive in this range too (hardwired or wireless- doesn't matter.) There should be no issue communicating with the printer in this scenario. When you start to introduce extenders, you have to make sure it's set to bridge mode or whatever the vendor calls it. Without this the extender creates its own broadcast domain. This is bad because you introduce a double NAT scenario (so like if you're trying to port forward to a client on the extender it won't work) and also clients connected to the extender won't be able to communicate with clients on the "main" network provided by the original router and vice versa.
 
print off the info page from the printer then try to manually add the printer using the ip on that page.
 
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SamirD said:
I think the problem is that the laptops are connecting directly to your printer via wifi vs to your wifi that's connected to the printer. Hence why your desktop won't work.

What you really need is a wifi to ethernet bridge so that you can add a port to the printer and then it just connects into your network. The wifi is confusing devices since there's already another wifi.
Click to expand...
this seems like what's going on. does your printer have an Ethernet port? if so just power line from the printer direct your router/switch
 
FYI, I know this wasn't the direct quetion, but extenders are garbage. Never use them. Either use a single router or a mesh system if you don't want to deploy your own APs.
 
It might be even simpler to get a the cheapest small box you can and connect the printer to it and then share out the printer. 50-100$ fanless old box and run linux
 
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