Making a wired printer wireless?

[nathangg]

FYI: I'm an assistant clerk (not STS ).

We have a need to make a wired printer wireless and our STS mentioned that our building is going full wireless and wired RJ45 jacks are being removed. (We had originally planned on just sticking with wired, but that doesn't seem to be an option anymore).

What would be the recommended approach? (Note: this printer is not near a computer)

(I've done some research and it appears I can get a TP-Link RE105 and supposedly plug the wired printer into the RJ45 jack on the extender, and join the extender to the LDSAccess network... but given that LDSAccess isn't just a WPS enabled home-network, I wasn't 100% if this idea would work).

Thank you,
Nathan

[nmecantwin73]

It is not recommended to use wifi range extenders on meetinghouse networks.

What is the make and model of the printer? It may be possible to add a wireless network card to the printer, depending on the make/model. I did this to my Stake Office printer after the network upgrade removed ethernet - the FM assisted me in supplying the correct part which was easy to install.

Ultimately, the STS could contact the FM via FIR to either request a wireless network card for the printer or replace the printer with one that has wireless capability because of the network change.

[caillines]

If you are tech savvy, you could set up a (properly secured) raspberry pi, install CUPS on it, and have the raspberry pi on the wireless network probably in the nosplash zone rather that having it connected to Lehi.
If you don't know what any of this means, I wouldn't advise trying to do it.

In my opinion though, if facilities has decided to change something that means your printers wont work, then they should be providing the solution using the facilities budget not the unit budget.

[russellhltn]

if facilities has decided to change something that means your printers wont work, then they should be providing the solution using the facilities budget not the unit budget.

While wireless printers are allowed, I can't find any evidence in church documentation to suggest support for printing from personal devices.

[lajackson]

I can't find any evidence in church documentation to suggest support for printing from personal devices.

There may not be official support, but it happens all the time here. A counselor interviews a youth for a temple recommend, then kicks the print request from his phone to the printer. A unit clerk or counselor prints out a regular recommend for an adult.

A stake presidency member sends a completed recommend from his phone to the printer.

It seems that the only time the clerk computer sends something to the printer is at the end of preparing a deposit, or when a check needs to be printed.

[drepouille]

Our youth, Primary, and Sunday School teachers have been learning how to print from their mobile phones to the Xerox B405 in the meetinghouse library. It has been fun to watch. First, the youth figured it out. Then a SS teacher asked me how to do it. Then her partner asked me how to do it. But she only printed one copy of a handout, and then moved that one copy to the scanner glass to make more copies. I asked her why she didn't just print the number of copies she needed. She looked at me with big eyes and said, "I didn't know I could do that!"

I have always developed a nervous twitch when I have seen teachers slap a lesson manual on the scanner glass and makes copies. Why make a copy of a copy?