Printing from a iPad to a Brother label printer

[Donald]

I am not a iPad guy but helping the church. They have an application that prints from the iPad to the Brother label printer via WIFI. The printer shows up on the Unifi display as an attached device.

The application does not allow me to specify the IP address rather it finds and displays the various printers by model number.

The problem they have had in the past (they have two iPads and two label printers). The problem they have had in the past was both iPads printing to same label printer.

I am hoping that there is not unexplained magic happening where the application switches to WIFI direct mode to send data to the printer. But would any printer be capable of doing WIFI direct mode and infrastructure mode without having to change settings on the printer?

I can easily set static addresses for the printer with Unifi.

I need to see if I can get an email for the company that supports the application.

 

[Leo99]

On my wifi printer, I can go into settings and change its name. This way if I had two of the same printer, I could tell them apart. Then with my iPad, I select the printer that I want.

 

[redhat]

iOS Devices print to printers via AirPrint which is the Bonjour protocol and it runs on mDNS. Are the printers and the iPads on the same subnet or VLAN? If yes, OK, if no, I'd make sure you have mDNS traffic allowed to cross over subnets.

Are you using the UniFi controller for DHCP and talking about setting IP reservations per MAC within that?

On printers with a web interface, you should be able to specify the hostname, AirPrint name, mDNS name, etc. Something within the web interface should allow you to edit its hostname where it'll appear as separate devices when the AirPrint list of printers comes up.

I am not sure for this particular model which name will change the AirPrint name... some there is a dedicated AirPrint naming section, others go off of the whole device's hostname.

If you could call one PRINTER A and one PRINTER B, I would be less concerned about static IPs or IP reservations, let them fly on DHCP and then you should be able to distinguish them.

 

[Donald]

I believe the host name is different for each as they imbed the printer serial number in each hostname.

But the application just shows the model as the printer, not hostname.

The Brother label utility allows me to specify the IP of the printer. That is what is needed in this application.

 

[mk378]

It sounds like the writer of the app didn't consider that there may be two printers on the network.

I would try this:
* Set up DHCP reservations for both printers.
* Have only one printer plugged in, and confirm it is running on its reserved address. Register that printer on the ipad that you want to print to it.
* Unplug the first printer and do the same thing with the other printer and the other ipad.
* Label the printers and the ipads so it is clear to the users how it is intended to work. Tell them not to change printer setup.

 

[Donald]

I thought of using Unifi traffic rules and preventing the first iPad from seeing 2nd printer and second iPad from seeing 1st printer.

 

[Donald]

Well the app is certainly lacking in flexibility. I assigned fixed addresses to the two iPads and two Brother label printers and then on the Unifi gateway setup traffic rules to prevent iPad one from seeing printer two and iPad two from seeing printer one.

Initial testing looked good.

 

[Donald]

I also cheated setting up the WIFI on the Brother label printer. I setup an old WIFI router with the proper SSID and password and used the WPS option to get the WIFI SSID and password into the label printer. Then unplugged the old WIFI router, put it back in the old electronics box and let the label printer connect to the Unifi access points with same SSID and password.