Hawking Technology HWPS12UG 2 USB and 1 Parallel Port Wireless G Print Server

Average customer rating: 2.5

works with assistance
5 stars for linux users
Not compatible with many printers
Wireless range a little lacking
Do not buy this product! Try this one instead: Apple's Airport Extreme

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Hawking Technology HWPS12UG 2 USB and 1 Parallel Port Wireless G Print Server

Manufacturer: Hawking Technology
Product Group: CE
Binding: Electronics
ASIN: B0001R03X6

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Product Description

Connect up to 3 Printers to your wireless LAN with Hawking Technologies HWPS12UG Print Server!The Hawking HWPS12UG 2 USB + 1 Parallel port 10/100 Wireless Print Server is a powerful and convenient tool to connect your USB and parallel printers to your existing wireless 802.11b or 802.11g network. Through its enhanced functionality, the HWPS12UG can support up to three printers at one time (2 USB + 1 Parallel). The Hawking HWPS12UG combined with the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) lets you easily connect to any printer and print documents by specifying the print server's IP address. With IPP technology, printing over a WAN or the Internet becomes much easier. You can send a print job to a printer in another country just as easily as sending a print job to your home or office printer. IPP eliminates the need for fax communications between offices. Simply print an original document through the HWPS12UG's IPP capabilities and send it from one office to another. The print quality from IPP printing is equal to that of a document printed from your local office. With the HWPS12UG, your printers become a fully functional networked print station.

Customer Reviews:

works with assistance.......2007-05-09

Didn't work as described in instructions. After speaking to tech support for about 5 minutes was printing. Had to configure the port with the IP address of the printer. Now it works flawlessly. An adendum should be included in the instructions or on a website to describe how to configure the port for printing.

5 stars for linux users.......2006-09-14

Yep, it's unlikely windows users will consider this product a winner, but for penguinistas saying "hasta la vista" to the stuff from Redmond , this wireless print server is the way to go. Out of the box things are not promising, Hawking decided not to supply mine with an antennae. Could have sent it back but solved the problem with an expensive but stonking big linksys 7dBi mast that seems to work fine.

The quick install guide states categorically that you can configure it by connecting it via ethernet cable to your network. The only way I could talk to it was by connecting directly from pc to the unit - even then the only way the pc would see it is by rebooting the pc while the unit was connected and powered up.

Next problem for dedicated windows users is the winders setup wizard is quite broken. Even the latest versions and the lastest firmware do not help. If you want to setup standard MS printing, I forsee serious cogitations on the horizon! The Hawking websight is excellent and locating support downloads simple. The regular print server manager manager works fine and one just has to figure how to manually configure the thing without having ones trembling paw guided by the "wizard". It detected my lexmark e232 immediatly and ipp printing was quickly enabled. For linux you really only have to access the unit to fiddle with the wep and set a static ip address. All you need to know about ipp setup is in the quick guide and it's so simple to configure it makes you wonder why anyone bothers with anything else. The unit comes with IPP switched on by default so once you have an ip you are ready to do wireless printing in linux. In KDE Print choose an lpd queue - that's right skip the ipp queues! Works great with Mepis.

Not compatible with many printers.......2006-04-14

I bought this device and there is nothing in the documentation or easily available on the web site that tells the customer that only certain printers are supported. After trying to make the device work for several hours, I sent an email to tech support who sent back an incompatible list of printers. Most of Multi-function All-in-one printers will not work at all. On top of that, just about all the top brands have printers that do not work. This includes HP, Epson, Canon, Dell, Okidata, etc. While I can understand compatibility issues - these should be explained in detail up front on the web site and on the packaging. Do not buy this device until you can assure yourself that your printers will work.

Wireless range a little lacking.......2006-03-25

This hardware seemed ideal for me since I have three printers: an HP LJ1100 using the parallel port, and two USB-connected dye sublimation printers used for photo printing. Also it can use the internet printing protocol, useful since I mostly run my computer on Debian Linux. I had no trouble setting the device up to work under both Windows 2kPro and Linux, using the ipp printing protocol (with CUPS on the Linux side). Perhaps the docs could stand some improvement, but as long as you don't expect spoon feeding and are prepared to think a little, they are quite adequate to set the server up. You should set the printserver up with a static IP address so your printer configurations stay the same.

The main problem I have with the unit is range (unlike a previous reviewer). My wireless router is downstairs in my house, where the TV cable connnection comes in. My desktop computer is in a room directly above the router, and I've had no connection issues such as dropped packets (my router is a Netgear 802.11g), either with Windows 2000 or Linux. The idea of getting the printserver was to move three (two of them bulky) printers off my desk and into the walk-in closet across the hall. This places one more sheetrock covered wall between the router and the printserver. I had all kind of issues with printing (incomplete pages, printer errors) until I placed the printserver in the doorway so that the wall is no longer in the way. Now I can ping it and reliably get no dropped packets, although occasionally a page will come out incomplete (could be the CUPS driver's fault).

I still have a little experimenting to do - perhaps there is somewhere I can locate the printserver so it is out of the way and still catches all the packets, but at least it works. Or I could spend another $30 for a supplementary antenna. And I still need to work with the smallest printer (a HiTi 630PL) which hasn't worked properly through the server. But it only has a small footprint so that it isn't a pressing problem.

So overall I'm a happy camper - I can print, and I have more room on my desk to put stuff.

Do not buy this product! Try this one instead: Apple's Airport Extreme.......2006-01-01

I gave the HWPS12UG hours and hours (actually days) of my time over the past year trying to make it work. I called their tech support several times. It seems they have just one guy working there because I always got him and he was always condescending though he couldn't figure out how to make the thing work. They exchanged the old one, sent me a new one and still couldn't make it work. My father figured out how to install it by playing with IP addresses etc. but when I tried to add a new printer, it threw everything off again.

I finally switched to Apple's AirportExtreme and had my windows computers and iMac's printing to an old Ethernet printer and a new USB printer in seconds using Apple's free bonjour software. I can't believe I wasted so much of my time being frustrated with this Hawkings product that simply is not ready for primetime!

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