D-Link DPR-1260 RangeBooster G Multifunction Print Server

I was looking for a reasonably priced wireless print server for a while so I could shut down my print server PC. This little unit fit the bill quite nicely, and had good reviews, so I bought it knowing full well that it may not work 100% with my Canon i9100 color printer. The unit was easy to set up with WPA on my wireless network. The printer installation worked as advertised for my NEC SuperScript 1400 laser, but when installing the Canon, at first it did not find the Canon driver on my computer. I had to re-download and reinstall the Canon driver, do a bit of messing around with the settings, try to add it manually based on what it did with the NEC printer, and finally somehow got it working. Of course as other people mentioned, the Canon print monitor does not work at all so I can't determine ink levels or run cleaning cycles without connecting my laptop directly to the printer. At this point I am considering getting one of the specialized Canon print servers (PRICOM C-6200U USB Full Speed Canon Print Srvr for Canon Inkjet Mfp & Laser) and hooking it up to the ethernet bridge port on the D-Link to get full functionality. Besides this hiccup, the print server itself has been very stable and has never to my knowledge lost its connection to my wireless router, which is one floor down and at the opposite corner of the house. So I'm enjoying the power savings of not having the print server PC running full time, as well as a much quieter home office.Update (October 25, 2011): The print server worked well for the first couple of years, but for about the last year has been losing its connection both to the wireless network and the printers just about every day. When I check the server, the wireless light is still lit as if connected, but both printer lights are out. Power-cycling the server seems to be the only solution. After that, it connects to the network and printers, and I can print again for a day or so. It's pretty annoying.

Looking at the other reviews, I was a bit skeptical. However, for me the printserver worked like a charm - well kind of. Its true that the instructions aren't one of the best I have seen out there. But if you are a little "Handy" with computers, the setup is fairly simple. There are a few things to keep in mind (some of them are obvious but I will list them anyways):1. Ensure that your printer is supported - look at the list of printers at the D Link site. Other printers may also work, but then you are taking a chance and you don't want to come to the review section later with a one star rating.2. Don't forget that the MAC ID of the printer is on the box and if you have a secure wireless setup with MAC filtering, you will do well to include the server's MAC ID in the security setup of your router as the first step in the setup.3. Can't believe I did this - my first computer was setup in a flash while the printserver CD in the CD ROM. When I went to other computers to setup - it just won't work, even when the CD was in the CD ROM. Well, you need the printer CD (not the printserver CD - which has just the dcouments) in the CD ROM. Well, then how did it work for the first computer. Becuase, that machine already had all the printer drivers as the printer was locally attached to it. Duh!Apart from keeping the above in mind, the setup completed with ease. All the machines can print wirelessly and perfectly. And it comes with a little plastic platform, to stick it to a wall (though I did not use it. With $20 rebate, this thing is a steal!

Well, as the title mentions, I did get this print server to work with my Dymo LabelWriter 450 TwinTurbo printer - so I'm actually pretty happy with it. It also works fine using WPA2 security on my network. The setup was somewhat of a pain, so I figured I should briefly go through some of the steps I had to go through.None of the D-Link auto-config tools will work with the x64 version of Windows 7, so you should probably steer clear of this product unless you're pretty familiar with setting up network devices manually.Before getting into the step-by-step instructions for how I got the DPR-1260 to work, I should mention that mine didn't ship with the latest firmware. The funny thing is that the "newest" firmware was released in 2004. The included manual says it was printed in 2007, so I'm not sure why the firmware wasn't updated...*** Wireless Network Connection ***This device connected just fine to my wireless network using WPA2 security. Here are the steps I followed to get it working:1) First, I plugged the DPR-1260 into my network using a standard network cable (instead of wireless) and let it pick up an IP address from my DHCP server.2) I determined which IP address the DPR-1260 was using by looking at the reservations in my DHCP server. You can also access it using the name "dlink-xxxxxx", where the x's represent the last 6 digits of the MAC address.3) I logged into the DPR-1260 directly from my web browser at [...]. (The DPR-1260 is shipped with no password - so just hit enter when prompted.)4) From there, I setup the wireless setting to attach to my network with WPA2. Once configured, I rebooted and unplugged the Ethernet cable. The DPR-1260 apparently uses the same MAC address for both the wired and wireless connections because it came up on the wireless with the same IP address.5) Finally, I setup a DHCP reservation so the IP address of the print server won't change.*** Printer Setup ***I struggle for a bit on this, but here are the steps I followed to make my printer work without the D-Link setup utility:1) Go to your web browser and look at the "Device Info" page from the DPR-1260. The setting you will need to remember is the "LPR Queue Name".2) Open the "Devices and Printers" dialog and click "Add a Printer".3) On the "Add Printer" dialog, click "Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer".4) After it says "No printers were found.", click "The printer that I want isn't listed".5) Click "Add a printer using a TCP/IP address or hostname". This is the last obvious step...6) Type in the IP address of the print server - DON'T TRY TO GET IT TO CONNECT DIRECTLY TO THE PRINTER.7) On the "Additional port information required" dialog, click "Custom" and then click "Settings..."8) On this dialog, you need to select the LPR protocol, and then set the "Queue Name" to the name you got in step #1. Then click OK.That's it! Finish out the wizard and you should be good to go.*** Conclusion ***Although I'll admit the setup process is a hassle, and the directions are poorly written, the DPR-1260 does work pretty well if you can get it configured. If you've setup some of the old-school network routers that didn't have auto-config utilities, then you can probably get this working too.Overall, I'm giving it 3 stars. Basically, it works fine (with a printer I'm SURE they never tested with), but it's a pain to get setup.