6mo ago

How to make an old USB brother laser printer wireless?

I have an old Brother laser printer that's been doing fine and doesn't need to be replaced, but it only supports USB. Is there a device besides an old computer/laptop that would make it a shared wireless printer that supports windows machines well? I'm pretty sure i could come up with something myself, but i would prefer an off-the-shelf solution that handles updates and bugs without needing any attention from me.

Edit: Raspberry Pi 5 ordered!

27 comments

You could try setting up a cheap Raspberry Pi with the print service (I forget what it's called). Even a Pi Zero W would work, just need a USB cable to the printer.
I've found USB print servers to be rather pricey, since they aren't used much any more. At least spending money on a Pi would give you something you could do a lot more with.
- CUPS is probably the print server you're thinking of.
- USB print servers to be rather pricey,
  I mean, on Amazon, they look to be $25 and up. I guess "pricey" is relative, but that doesn't seem all that bad.
  I don't know that they'd be less effort to maintain than a laptop or whatever, though, which OP was concerned about. I mean, you might or might not update your laptop, but I'm dubious that an all-in-one print server is gonna be getting updates at all.
  
  Oh, wow, last I looked they were a lot more than that.
  Plus when I looked a Pi wasn't $50+.
  I'd probably just get the print server today at that price.

A lot of wifi routers have a USB port on them, connect the printer straight to the router, enjoy your wireless printer.
- OpenWRT FTW.

Look for a USB print server.
- Yeah I’m asking for recommendations.

Is connecting it to the router via USB an option?
- Ooh, that's a good one. Most home routers have that now.
- No.

It's hard to change an old brother.

I used the cheapest sbc I could find at the time which was an orange pi zero to run a CUPS server

Rpi 5 is overkill. You can probably do this with a Rpi zero W
- I’ve never used a Pi before so I may end up using it for other things. The cost isn’t really the issue, it’s the idea of throwing out a perfectly working printer just to get network support.

Many modern routers have this exact capability - to take a USB-only printer and serve it up over the network. Even some ISP modem/router combo units are set up to do this. Check to see if your router has any USB ports on the back.
- Router and printer are in different locations.
  
  You or someone may have an old router with usb in a closet somewhere. Many routers have repeater capability.

U can probs get ur hands on a raspberry pi pretry cheap and put cups on it. Seems very doable chatgpt will strait up give u a step by step.
- Wouldn’t I need to get a unique ARM driver for the usb printer to work?
  
  Cups when u add a printer figures that all out and gets the appropriate driver and things u need to print.
  
  CUPS eats printers and shits out function, it’s all open source so underlying isa doesn’t matter much.

As others have already mentioned the better method of connecting to a router, I'll also mention if it's located by a Windows machine you can share the printer from the printer properties window. One other option is buying a wireless adapter for the printer itself. I have fixed old printers which used the wireless adapters and I assume they worked for a long time but were a massive pain to troubleshoot as the user manuals/drivers/documentation could no longer be found online.

I'd pick the Raspberry Pi if you can do the install. Furthermore maybe your internet router can do it. I think it's possible with some Fritzbox models or ones that run OpenWRT. Or you pay the price for one of those dedicated adapters. I don't know if the drivers for those are more or less haste than using a Raspberry Pi.

27 comments