Printer hook up

[Madcad]

I'm trying to hook up 2 printers to the Square register. When I hook them up close to the hub both printers are recognized. When I move printer away from the hub (40 ft) it is not recognized. I've hooked it up to the modem too trying both USB and ethernet ports and still not recognized. How do you hook up printer 40 ft away from hub so it will be recognized in the register? Currently I'm running system with wifi. Thank you for any advice. They are Star tsp 100 printers

[ryanwanner]

Hello @Madcad !

Yeah, gotta love printer issues, that's for sure. When they work they're amazing. When they don't you want to pull your hair out.

Let's start with the USB connections. When you're close to the hub, I'm not surprised they're working fine for you. USB has a maximum length of 16 feet and change. Trying to extend to 40' is going to weaken the signal to the point where the register won't recognize it (or give you really random results).

I do think that Ethernet is the best way to go about this for you. The maximum length of an Ethernet cable is over 200' so you won't see any signal degradation.

First, let's make sure you have your network configured correctly.

For your setup, make sure your printers are plugged into the same switch as your wifi access points are. I highly recommend not using your ISP's modem network ports for this. There's limited security that way, and your whole internal network is visible to the outside world. Even getting a basic Netgear switch to live between your network and the outside world is better than the ISP modem ports. Best case scenario is to have a switch plug into the ISP modem. The Switch then has the Wifi access point plugged into it. Then plug your printers into the switch and/or the wifi network ports.

Once you have your Wifi access point enabled and your printers plugged into the switch lets make sure your printers are on the same network. Press and hold the printer's power button while you turn it on. Once the lights flash let the button go. You'll get a printout of settings, a pause, then a printout showing your printer's IP address. Check to verify that the numbers are similar to your register's ip. For the actual Square Register, I'm not sure where that setting is, but for any iOS device, go to Settings -> Wi-Fi -> tap the circled i for the active connection, look for IP Address setting.

If your printers' IP addresses look similar to your other devices (192.168.1.xxx or 10.1.1.xxx is the usual), then the register should be able to see them. If not, then they didn't get an IP address from a DHCP server. Usually, the wifi access point and/or the switch acts as that server. You rarely need to go get new hardware. I recommend powering off all the network hardware and restarting it in this order once the prior device is completely online: ISP modem, switch, wifi access point, register, then printers. That usually solves the problem. Check the IP addresses on the printers again. If they're still not on the same network, I recommend having someone check your network configuration. It's not really something Square supports.

Once the IP addresses are similar, Square should be seeing the printers.

On your register, settings -> Hardware -> Printers. If you've already set up printer stations, go into each station and make sure the printer model is set correctly. Hopefully the printers are seen here.

If the printers aren't seen at this point, the other thing to check is that your register is connecting to the same Wifi access point. My printers are on a hidden network, and when my tablets connect to the public wifi it can't see them. Don't want to tell you how many hours I spent troubleshooting that one!!!

I hope this helps you!