TSP 100 PRINTER connection issue - Cant connect more than 1

[Bobacup]

Hello, 

Recently, about a week ago, 7/22/23, Our two TSP 100 printers were not printing and on the Square terminal, it ask to configure the printers.  We hit the required buttons to configure and now, we are stuck with only 1 printer responding. 

We have a register printer and a prep station printer.   When both usb printers are plugged into the usb/lan hub, one printer will only print and take over as the primary.  If we unplug one, the other printer will be active to print.  

We have switch out the usb/lan hub thinking that was the issue but we are still experiencing where the terminal only recognizes one printer. 

We try resetting the terminal and it does not recognize additional printers.

FYI, we have 2 self ordering kiosk connecting via lan to a router connected to the hub.

Thank you for the advice and help in advance.

[Bobacup]

edit:  sorry, all our connections are ethernet, not lan.  

[Candlestore]

Lan Ethernet are similar.... Wifi is a Wireless Lan where as ethernet is a physical wired Lan   (Local Area Network). 

Bobacup you said:

"Yes, we have been using two Star TSP100 printer for about 6 years now.  We have never had any issue.  Connecting any supported device into the usb/ethernet hub connected to the Square Register allows you to have multiple devices such as cash drawer, printers, barcode scanners, etc.  "

I understand that the Register can work for the items connected to the Hub, but the Terminal and the Self serve stations is where I get confused as to being able to use both these printers or devices through the Registers Hub.

I have Square Stands (2)   Each Stand has a Hub.  What ever is plugged into the hub works with that stand, but not with the other Stand or any device on my network besides the stand connect to the HUB.  I was thinking this is how the Registers Hub works too.

I have the Star Ethernet/usb/Bluetooth printer.

When this Printer is connected by Bluetooth only 1 device can print or connect to it at a time.

When I have the Printer connected by USB, only the stand connected to the Hub the printer connects to can print.

My 2nd Stand can not wifi to the 1st  stand to tell it to print.  This does not work like Printer Sharing on a Computer. 

Now when I have the printer connected by ethernet both stands and my cell can all print to that Printer or any other device in the future.

The only way I know to get a USB printer to work to multiple devices is either with a small Print server like I listed before or using a Router or maybe even a Repeater that has a USB port that has the ability to share the USB port for the printer.  

So if your Router is near where you want the Prep Station printer, try plugging in the Prep Printer to the router and set it up that way instead of trying the Hub on the Register.

My cabel company gave me a straight cable modem since I prefer to setup my own lan and get higher end routers which have USB ports for sharing Printers and USB hard drives.   Depending on your router you may have these capabilities if the router has USB ports.

[Candlestore]

So were your 2 USB printers working before to print from Multiple stations?

The reason I am asking is as far as I knew only Network printers could print from multiple devices.

You may have to look at setting up Printer Profiles which is what Square uses now to tell the POS system which printer to print to.

I cannot find anything on how to setup Printer Stations in this forum just Printer Settings from 2020 or so.

Here is that link for setting up and troubleshooting : 7179-set-up-your-printer-with-square-for-restaurants 

Usually for a USB printer to be shared you need to enter settings on a computer or have a router that has USB ports that configures these as a virtual Network Port to be shared.  Not sure how the Square dongle will work to bring in the network requests to print to a USB printer.   The Network dongle on a Square hub is more for out going traffic from your Pos station from my understanding.  

Which is probably why you are having these issues.  If you had Network Printers this would be the way multiple devices can print to that 1 Printer.  You may need a USB Print server, which basically has an IP address, and then converts the data coming to that IP address to printer files for your printer.  I used this type of setup to print to an old epson USB photo printer from multiple computers.  I do not know if this can work for you but it is cheaper than getting all new Network Receipt printers.  Here is a link to what I am referring to:

https://www.digi.com/products/networking/infrastructure-management/usb-connectivity/usb-over-ip/anyw... 

Now I have not used this brand I used a Single USB to Network hub from Netgear.   Any of this information you would try would be at your own risk as this is not supported by Square.

[Bobacup]

Hi Keith, 

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, we have been using two Star TSP100 printer for about 6 years now.  We have never had any issue.  Connecting any supported device into the usb/ethernet hub connected to the Square Register allows you to have multiple devices such as cash drawer, printers, barcode scanners, etc.  

I will follow up on your advice and see if I can find a work around on this.

thank you!