printer constantly "disappears"

I have a printer which works very well "the first time" it is used, but if it sits for any extended period of time, it "gets lost."

The printer is connected via wifi to my router and my iMac connected to the same router via Ethernet. WiFi is disabled on the iMac.

I have no problems with the iMac CREATING a connection to that printer -- and then continuing to print from it.

However, "the next day," the printing subsystem can no longer see the printer.... it simply reports off-line or communications error.

However, the Finder can see the Memory Card in the printer, with no problem.

If I simply delete the printer and re-create it printing (and scaning) work again as normal. This is simply a pain in the butt as deleting the printer purges (deletes) the print queue necessitating on the "re-print" whatever was on that queue.

So, what is the trick to keeping the printer connection viable?

Were it not for the fact that I have disabled WiFi on the iMac, I would have no problem believing that the infamous iMac WiFi bug was causing the problem... but that is why the iMac is connected via Ethernet and WiFi disableld!

The make of the printer and the drivers are not relevant... that part works fine. What fails is the abilitiy of the iMac communications software.

This has been going on for well over a year now through multiple releases of OSX and OSX driver updates.

Currently running 10.8.5

And what's with these damm tags... try to add one and the bloody drop-down blocks the post button.