TP-LINK TL-WPS510U 150Mbps Wireless Print Server, USB 2.0, Detachable Antenna

NOTE - This review is specific to the **TP-LINK TL-WPS510U Wi-Fi Print Server** (not the Parallel or USB print servers). Outstanding! Highly Recommend. Very pleased with this Wi-Fi Print Server. It's tiny - half the size of a deck of cards. Printer: HP LaserJet 1200 circa 1990's (using PCL 5 print drivers) - the little LaserJet workhorse! Previous networked solution - USB cable HPLJ to DLINK router, plus DLink's ShareportPlus utility installed on each PC. (Unreliable in a multi-user, concurrent printing environment.) New networked solution - TP-LINK TL-WPS510U Wi-Fi Print Server mounted inside HP LaserJet 1200 connectivity bay (totally concealed). Successfully working on 5 PCs (all Windows 7 SP1, 1 Dell desktop, 3 Dell laptops, 1 HP desktop) Step 1 - Turn off printer; mount WPS510U inside LaserJet, power up both print and WPS510U. (10 minutes) Step 2 - run "Easy Setup" (from the mini-CD) on first PC. This configures the WPS510U in the printer and on the network (via DHCP), then configures the printer port for the PC. (10 minutes) Step 3 - run "Setup Wizard" (from the mini-CD) on remaining PCs. This configures the printer port for each PC. (5 minutes per PC) Success - printing tests on all 5 PCs successful. HP LJ1200 is now WiFi capable. No complications during setup, at all. Also Note - I'm running a multi-printer environment - HP LJ1200 (now WiFi) and an EPSON Workforce Pro 4530 MFP (with built-in WiFi). Both printers happily co-existing.

Five stars awarded for working well and being able to add additional PC's easily once it was setup. It's extremely reliable, sitting in the far corner of a kitchen / dinette, 25' from the wireless router, with a wall and a refrigerator directly between the router and this device (although take that with a grain of salt, because I have a beefy wireless router, an older WRT-54G with upgraded antennas, and Open Source firmware I installed that allowed me to greatly goose up the transmit power of the router). Two stars knocked off for a bizarre 3.5 hour setup process. This is not a device for the faint-of-heart with networks. Their term "Easy Setup" is a real Oxymoron. Even though this device comes pre-configured with an IP address of 192.168.0.10, I was never able to connect to this device by using the "Static IP address of 192.168.0.x on your laptop" trick that many of the older reviews describe. Strangely, I finally was finally able to connect to it, after multiple tries, by using the normal 192.168.1.x address on my laptop and running Easy Setup multiple times. Maybe I finally just got lucky. Very strange. At the end of EACH step of the "Easy Setup" connection dialog (Select wireless router, Enter network key, Select print server, Select Use DHCP, Select Printer) it would disconnect the laptop from the wireless network, and I would have to reconnect before doing the next step. Sometimes, it made the laptop forget the saved network key, and I'd have to re-enter it. It did this for each of the 5 or 6 times I ran "Easy Setup" before it finally connected with the laptop on the 192.168.1.x subnet. Very strange. I was relieved when it finally offered to print a Test Page. But, no Test Page was printed. At this point I gave up and decided to start over from scratch, so I pressed and held for a few seconds the Reset button on the back of the unit to put it into factory condition. It cycled through it's POST routine, and... Printed the Test Page, showing an IP address of 192.168.1.103! Very strange. At this point, I was able to log into the device from the laptop by using the browser interface, and I changed the IP address to from DHCP to static 192.168.1.103 (so that I'd always know it's IP address in the future, taking no chance that it would lock me out by getting a different IP address that I wouldn't know). At this point the device was on the network, could see my HP PSC 2400 multi-function printer, and had printed a Test Page. However, Windows 7 said that the printer was off-line. I could not print anything from Windows 7. What I finally figured out I had to do was 1. Delete the printer. 2. Go to Add Printer, and add the printer as a new printer, using the device driver that was already installed on the system. 3. Add Port, select "Local printer attached to this computer" 4. Create a new port of type Standard TCP/IP Port 5. Configure the new port, entering the IP address of this device (192.168.1.103 in my case), specify LPR protocol and print queue name of lp1. And then, everything worked beautifully. Giving an old XP system access to the printer through this device was very easy, I just had to do steps 2 - 5 above (NOT using the Easy Setup software that came with the unit); it took about a minute.

I have nothing good to stay about this piece of junk. Bought two to connect two separate printers, and the same applies to both. Aside from the stupid setup, Which I don't want to talk about much as every other review complained about the same thing, which by the way took me two days to finally figure out; these print servers are not bi-directional, they will not give you any feedback whatsoever from the printer, which in my opinion is the stupidest thing you can be missing from a print server. I would presume, like most users, you would need a print server to connect multiple computers on a network, and in doing so, the printer would not be in close proximity to the computers. How in the world are you going to tell if your job printed, or what the ink levels are. both printers were listed as fully compatible with this unit, but both printers could not communicate back with the computers. You send a print job, and hope for the best. I would return them if I could, but that is too late. Stupid piece of crap. I would avoid at all costs.

I followed the instructions in the manual to set this up using the browser interface. My router uses WPA encryption and I was able to set it up without issue. You do have to pay attention to detail. The ip addresses used during setup are specific and switch between 192.168.0.10 and 192.168.1.10. You will need to be careful to match the address in your laptop or whatever wireless computer you use to do the setup as well. Follow the directions and it should work for you too. I did not use the setup software so I cannot comment on the quality of the software. Once the print server is setup you will need to add the printer to each of the computers that will print to your printer. Again the instructions were fine. Just pay attention to the detail. It has been running for most of a month now and has been flawless sharing my Brother HL-1440 among 3 computers. The HL-144o is not on the list of supported printers but it works great. Now I don't have to leave my computer on just for printer sharing.

The key word being "IF"....setting this thing up is not for the faint of heart. I have over 30 years experience in IT troubleshooting, and this was not easy to set up, even for me. I bought this to use with a Dymo LabelWriter 4XL on my MacBook Pro. The first time I set it up, I don't remember what I did, but I do remember feeling like I stumbled my way through it, finally getting it to work after 2-3 hours. It worked beautifully for a while after that, printing effortlessly through Wi-Fi, just as if the printer were connected to my laptop via USB. Unfortunately, it didn't last. After a month or so, it no longer worked. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I couldn't print wirelessly anymore, and had to use a cable instead. Today I finally had some time to troubleshoot, and I really wish I had written down what I did the first time, because it took me literally 6 hours to get it up and running again. This time, I DID write it down, in case I have to do it again. For those of you with a similar setup (Mac), I'll include the steps in this review. * * * HOW I GOT IT TO WORK ON A MACBOOK PRO VIA WIFI * * * The following steps were taken without connecting the print server to the printer, or to my laptop. I'm not sure if that makes a difference. Also, you want to be sure your printer's drivers have already been installed on your laptop before you begin. First of all, I didn't use the TP-LINK USB Printer Controller utility. I may have used it before (can't remember for sure), but I wasn't able to get it to work the second time, so I made due without it. I also didn't use Airport, because I don't have it. My router is an ASUS RT-AC66U. You'll want to start by resetting the print server, if you haven't already. (Unplug the power from the unit, hold down the reset button, plug the power back in while continuing to hold the reset button, continue holding for 10-15 seconds, release button, wait for green light to come on). Once the green print server light is on, connect your laptop to the print server's "WLAN-PS" wifi network Then, on your laptop, go to System Preferences, Network, be sure Wi-Fi is selected, then click on Advanced... Select the TCP/IP tab Configure IPv4 Manually, with IPv4 Address set to 192.168.0.100, Subnet Mask at 255.255.0.0 (will not work at 255.255.255.0) Leave router address blank Click OK, then Apply Now go to your browser (I use Chrome) and go to 192.168.0.10 It should automatically go to 192.168.0.10/SYSTEM.HTM You'll need to log in. The default credentials are Username: admin Password: admin Click SETUP, then TCP/IP Change the following TCP/IP settings: IP Address: (select an IP address for your print server that will work with your router settings, i.e. 192.168.0.151) Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 Router: (your router's IP address, i.e. 192.168.0.1) Click Save and Restart The page will automatically reload with new IP address (i.e. 192.168.0.151) (you might have to log in to the print server again) Once the web page has reloaded, click SETUP, then Wireless Click the wireless network (at bottom in Site Survey) that you want your print server to connect to Having done that, the basic settings fields will be pre-populated with the appropriate info Check the box next to the appropriate security type Of note here, the site survey said that my security type is WPA, when in fact, it is WPA2. Be sure you choose the correct one, according to how your router is set up, or it may not work. Fill in the security key Be sure the encryption type is correct (TKIP or AES - see router info). It won't work if you select the wrong type. Click Save and Restart The green light on the printer server will go off momentarily, as it restarts. While you're waiting for it to come back on, Disconnect your computer from the WLAN-PS wireless network Connect to your home wireless network again. Go back to your System Preferences, Network, Advanced..., and change the TCP/IP settings back to what they were before (i.e. Using DHCP) Once the print server's green light comes back on, you should be able to type in the IP address that you assigned earlier (i.e. 192.168.0.151) and it should pull up the print server web page again. If so, you're almost done. Connect your printer to the print server with the cable. Now go back to your System Preferences, Printers & Scanners, and add your printer. Choose IP and type in the IP address you assigned to the print server earlier (i.e. 192.168.0.151). For Protocol, choose HP Jetdirect - Socket (otherwise your printer may pause when you try to print). Under Name, type in something descriptive (i.e. Dymo LabelWriter 4XL). Under location, type in the IP address again. Under Use, select "Select Software" and choose the correct software for your printer. Then click Add. Hopefully at this point you'll be able to print to your printer wirelessly through the print server on your wireless network. I saw some other reviews that said every now and then they had to unplug the print server and plug it back in again. I'll try that if mine quits working again, and will come back and update my review. In all, it does everything I hoped it would do, once it's set up. The 1 star deduction is for the difficulty in setting it up. Good luck with yours!

I bought my TL-WPS510U from Amazon's Warehouse Deals at a substantially reduced price. It was listed as used but appears to be an open box item with almost no evidence of use. Before you buy one of these it might be good to go to [...] and download the compatibility list to see if it should be compatible with your printer. There are four different versions .v1, .v2, .v3, and .v4. and I believe a different compatibility list for each version. Mine was a .v4 one of the latest ones. Just to be safe, in case it had been programmed for someone else's network, I reset the wireless server unit to default according to directions. The green light you are to watch for is tiny, don't confuse it with the much larger red power light like I did at first and like a dummy was waiting for the red light to turn green when it reset. I also made the serious mistake of first trying to set it up using the" Setup Wizard" on the enclosed CD but that is definitely a mistake as nothing was recognized by the Setup Wizard. You need to do just as the directions state and click "Easy Setup" on the CD and follow those steps to first setup your network. I selected "Print a Test Page" just to make sure everything was going to work ok. Then when you are ready to setup the print server on a second or third computer now is the time to select "Setup Wizard". That process is much less involved but when asked, you do need to make sure you select "No, I don't want to change settings" and also highlight your printer to make sure it picks the correct printer. I tried it with two windows 7 laptops and it is working fine. I later tried it with a Windows 8.1 laptop and it works fine with 8.1 also. I should note that on both the second and third laptop I installed it on they would not print until I discovered that the "Work Offline" box for the printer had gotten checked and until I unchecked this it would not connect to my wireless router or print. Once set up it sure beats using the 16 ft. printer cable that we were passing back and forth across the room among laptops!

It was a snap to set-up a couple of Windows 7 laptops to work with this print server device. I just hooked everything up, popped in the CD and followed the prompts. I was printing wirelessly in no time. For Mac and Linux machines, it seemed logical to just piggyback on the configuration, so I noted the Windows port settings and transferred them over. No dice. Didn't work at all. For anything other than Windows, it seems, you have to configure the device to connect to your router's wifi network. And in order to do that, you have to go through a long convoluted series of steps. Not exactly fun if you're unfamiliar with this sort of thing, especially when problems occur. Even people who really know what they're doing might choose to avoid the hassle. So what was so bad about the Linux/Mac setup process? A few details: (1) You have to reconfigure your computer's network settings, twice. And a third time to get it back to normal where it can connect to the internet again. If you're not used to changing the TCP/IP settings, this can be a real pain. (2) You have to connect wirelessly to the TP-Link device, twice. And it may not appear on your computer's list of available networks until you perform a hardware reset. There's a sequence of steps that restores the device to its factory settings. Let's call it a full hardware reset. You may need to do that starting out. Later in the process you'll definitely want to keep the configuration changes you just made, so at that point you'll want to perform a simple hardware reset instead. Only some of this information is provided in the manual, in an oh-by-the-way section near the end. (3) The browser-based setup utility is finicky. Some people call this the "web management interface." You type the device's address into your browser and hope the application loads. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won't. Maybe it's persnickety about the web browser. (It didn't seem to like Firefox.) Maybe sometimes you just have to wait around for awhile. Maybe I just had a defective unit. Who knows. It also tends to hang when saving the configuration changes. You may resort again to making a simple hardware reset. (4) The device may not play nicely with your router. It dosen't like channels above 11 or the strictest wifi security settings. So you may have to muck around with your router's settings as well. (5) The long winding sequence of steps goes like this: hook up the hardware, modify computer's wireless network settings, connect wirelessly to device, load the setup app using its original address, modify configuration of device, save settings and restart, re-modify your computer's wireless network settings, re-connect to device, reload the setup app using the new address, modify device configuration again to join your router's wireless network, reloop as necessary after making changes to your router's configuration, restore computer's original network configuration to use internet again, setup computer to print using this new print server. And that omits the various hardware resets! I could never get my Linux and Mac computers to recognize the print server. Time to return the unit for a refund.

Connecting the hardware is simple. The pigtail for the USB connection is very short but I was able to use it without an extension with my HP 2300. The unit itself is about the size of a cigarette pack and the thin electrical cable was just long enough to reach the floor. It fits into the port-connection cavity of the 2300 great, but the super-short pigtail may be a problem for others. I had expected to simply set this up like any other network connected printer, but it was pretty clear that you should run the supplied installation program. It was easy enough to set up the first computer, but the 2nd and 3rd were enormous pains in the butt. Not only did the installation program not work but it screwed up my homegroup settings. I eventually got everything back and working but was not happy with the experience or time wasted. I've been working in IT for over 30 years. The problems I experienced were not due to lack of skill or poorly configured network or workstations. Now for a pet peeve. TP-LINK is a big company. The US is a big market. For God's sake - spend a few dollars to hire a native english speaker to review and correct your documentation and the prompts in your apps! It is often difficult for users to decide which of several possible interpretations of your statements is valid. It also leaves the customer with an over-whelming sense that your product is cheaply made by people that care nothing for quality. Since I have had it setup, it has worked without issue. We do not use the printer that often, but I think it speaks well of a print server that is infrequently used and does not become disconnected between uses.