Seeking help with legacy printer

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Level 1

67 points

Seeking help with legacy printer

I want to get a networkable printer — no longer supported by its manufacturer — to print by wifi, ethernet or at least direct by USB. One of our two iMacs can indeed print to it by USB (only). The catch is that the other can't, whether connected directly by USB or by sharing from the first iMac. I get an error message that the printer is not connected.

The installed drivers on both machines appear to be the same, Brother_HL_2170W_series, right down to the 4.5.0 version numbers.

The printer is a laser from 2007. It ran fine over both ethernet and wifi until I upgraded both iMacs to Mountain Lion. At that point if I ever turned it off it would fail to reconnect when turned back on. It was once possible to do some sort of reconfig by typing its IP address into a browser's URL bar and then going to a Brother webpage. But the IP address no longer links to Brother, as I discovered after accidentally unplugging the printer this week. Nor can I launch the original installation disk, which includes a configuration utility.

I'm still at OS X 10.8.5 (the last OS to fully support my FireWire harddrives) and suspect that a further update would do little for a legacy printer. Not the end of the world if I have to buy a new printer, but I begrudge throwing out one that is mechanically okay.

Suggestions appreciated.

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), 2.8 GHz, 4GB ram

Posted on Feb 10, 2016 7:40 PM

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Answer 1

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Mobile Blues

Level 4

3,666 points

Feb 11, 2016 4:39 PM in response to duncantho

I am pretty sure Printopia from Decisive Tactics can handle your needs. Give them a call and describe your needs. We use it in a similar configuration and it works great.

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Answer 2

duncantho Author

Level 1

67 points

Feb 11, 2016 4:38 PM in response to Mobile Blues

Many thanks MB. This is a brilliant suggestion. I've got the free trial and it works! Of course the printer has to be close to my iMac and attached by USB but it certainly beats being a doorstop. If Brother's Support eventually comes back with a way of getting it back on the network (so a 'sharing' Mac need not be awake) so much the better. But I may buy/register Printopia anyway for its other features, such as printing from iPads.

Regards

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