So this title might be a bit misleading, as this setup will require you have a spare router that will support the dd-wrt firmware, I wanted to say this up front to avoid anyone reading this to get upset by letting you know half way through this post.

I had to hack this together because my I run a windows domain, and my roomate’s new laptop has windows 7 home on it, so of course, he can’t be brought onto my domain but I still wanted to share out my printer with him.

I have random hardware laying around so I came up with this solution as it didn’t cost me anything to do. Sure I could have waited until Fry’s opened tomorrow, but I’m saving for a new car, and like I said, I’d rather put the hardware I have to work!

Here’s the breakdown, I can give more detailed instructions if you like, but I figured that would be better suited for the Forums as all those instructions would make this a very dry post.

You will need:

  • Wireless Access Point that supports at least WPA-2 Personal (TKIP or AES both work) and broadcasting it’s SSID
  • A Second wireless router that has dd-wrt installed
  • A Printer that accepts USB
  • A netgear wpg606 wireless print server (or any networked print server on second thought!)
Your wireless Access Point I’ll assume is working fine, and you have DHCP running on one of your servers or router. We won’t be making ANY changes to your wireless access point! All the heavy lifting will be handled by the secondary dd-wrt router.
Configure your dd-wrt router to be a wireless bridge. I followed this guide but would recommend you change your IP’s last, just before you join your wireless network from the site survey. Just my two cents, it seemed to go easier for me if I disabled everything first. It’s a very informative guide, so read through it first, then you’ll see that making a wireless bridge is actually really simple. (and it’s saved me a lot of work on random projects, especially old hardware just having a bridge lying around let me tell you!)
Next, in the print server setting’s I disabled the wireless radio, and set a static IP then just plugged in my printer. That’s it!
In windows 7, the way you actually add this printer is a little confusing, as you’ld think it’s a networked printer now right? Sorry, windows doesn’t recognize it as such, you’re going to want to create a local printer then define a Standard TCP/IP Port. Also it’s not a raw printer communication, it’s LPD so I’ll just show you in some screenshot’s how this works in windows 7.
From Devices and Printers, Add a printer.
Like I said before, Add a LOCAL printer.
Next we’re going to create a new port, pick “Standard TCP/IP Port” from the dropdown.
Enter in your printserver’s static address you set earlier, and give this port a name.
Then windows will try to do the right thing and detect the printer for you. This will fail. Don’t get discouraged!
You’ll then be asked for more port information. Being we’re going geeky, let’s choose the “Custom” Option and then click Settings…
Now in my case, the netgear wpg606 can support 2 different printers at the same time, make note of which usb port you used, in my case I used the first port. USB1. This get’s referenced in the “Queue Name” Port 1 is referenced as “L1″ port 2 would be, yep, L2. Also choose LPR for the printing protocol.
Click OK, and you’ll be taken back to the previous window. Click Next.
Everyone’s favorite part, Find your drivers. I’ll leave this up to you, I usually just choose have disk, and download the latest drivers from the manufacture’s page. If it’s an .exe file, you can usually extract it using your preferred app (I like winrar and have purchased a license years ago) you’ll need to end up with a .inf file somewhere to use the have disk option.
This is the file I’ll end up using.
Select it and click OK in the install from disk window.
Your printers driver should be selected now. Click Next.
Because I’ve already installed this driver before, I’ll get this window. In my case I’ll go ahead and use the driver that’s already installed, as I know it’s up to date. Click Next.
Name your printer if you like…
Decide if you want to share this printer. I’m not going to as it’s already a networked printer!!!
Now click Finish! Your printers installed!!! Go ahead, try it out, Print a test page. Yep your old hardware can still be used, if you want it to badly enough!
If this hasn’t helped, at least get this out of it, there’s always a way, sometimes you just have to keep thinking of how to make it happen!