Bluetooth Printer Adapter Setup

January 30, 2007 3:08 PM

Setting up a bluetooth printer adapter.

Have bought a Bluetooth USB printer adapter (Belkin F8T031) to use in a small office with a non-bluetooth printer (Dell 3010cn), so a number of laptops can print on the one printer without the cable swapping. Have successfully set it up on the first laptop, but when trying to set up on the second laptop - the printer adapter has told me, with no other option, to use COM 8 (serial) as the printer port. In the printer properties there is no COM 8 listed. The add port option doesn’t allow me to add a serial port. How do I get this COM 8 to appear in the printer properties' options?
Or some other work around would be fantastic too.
Cheers.

posted by hayeled to computers & internet (3 answers total)

Never used the unit, but when you pair your laptop with the unit, I'm pretty sure you can map any COM port to the BT adapter, just create a printer that prints to the COM port you mapped.

Just curious, your printer has a network jack, why don't you integrate it into your network? Perhaps with your wireless router? It'd be a lot less hassle than BT.
posted by mphuie at 7:43 PM on January 30, 2007

Bluetooth printing is slooooow and short range. Don't these laptops have WiFi?
posted by rokusan at 8:14 PM on January 30, 2007

thanks for the replies guys. i've messed with it a lot and have come to the conclusion that bluetooth is a headache. especially considering that some of the laptops aren't bluetooth capable, and need little bluetooth adapters themselves. to talk to the printer adapter.
the wireless printer router thing will be my recommendation to those that run the show. the router we currently have doesn't do printers, but for all the pain of bluetooth, a new router definitely seems like the way to go.

thanks again.
posted by hayeled at 5:22 AM on January 31, 2007