Creating a LAN of thermal receipt printers on a laptop

[deejaycruiser]

Hey all I have been designing and developing a setup for a while now that basically

has one laptop computer acting as server

a router that connects to laptop wirelessly

4 thermal receipt printers (ethernet connected directly to RJ45 port in router)

4 gadgets that connect to printers and trigger them to print (each gadget has its own unique printer, e.g. gadget 1 is connected to printer 1)

Now i am trying to set everything up together, but am having difficulties getting my PC to recognize EACH receipt printer. They are all the same type of printer but I am trying to figure out a way for each printer to react autonomously to all the other printers, and only when printer # 1's designated gadget is prompted to print it prints.

Any help would be really appreciated, thanks guys!

 

[Neodude1123201]

Each Thermal printer would have a set IP Address which you should be able to setup through the printer web interface OR through a config utillity that came with the printer. Then you would simply set up each PC With its own printer via the IP Adress's.

 

[deejaycruiser]

Yeah the printer came with a really buggy utility and i found that it would only run on windowx xp. IT's still really buggy and i finally got 2 configured on my router, however, when i disconnected my laptop from my router, and then connected it back again (wifi LAN) the IP address for my Computer refreshed and the printers weren't responding anymore and now I have to go reconfigure them again.

IS there anyway to avoid the ip refreshing? IF i connect the ethernet cable directly to my laptop rather than using wifi will that prevent this problem from happening?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Neodude1123201]

You can set a Static IP on your PC So your pc's IP Will never change, this site will help you with that.