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I have a Brother QL-500 label printer, which works over USB. I have an Asus router running Tomato firmware (Shibby 1.28.0000 MIPSR2-131 K26 USB VPN-64K). From what I have read, the configuration should be very simple, but I can't get it to work.

On the router config, I have enabled USB printer support. The printer appears in the list of attached devices.

On my computer, in OS X 10.10.5, I add a new printer using the router's IP address, and HP Jetdirect protocol, with the correct CUPS driver. When I try to print using the P-Touch Editor app, it first says Connecting to printer...
Then it says Printing - Waiting for printer to finish.
At this time, the printer's green light starts flashing quickly, which, according to the manual, means there is a problem with the label roll or cutter. After a minute, the print job disappears as if it were successful, but nothing ever prints, and the green light remains flashing until I power-cycle the printer.

This is the only thing shown in the Tomato log:

Jun 16 17:29:43 unknown lpr.notice p9100d[4664]: Connection from ::ffff:192.168.xxx.xxx port 56900 accepted
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If your printer supports a printer language (PCL5, ZPL, Esc/P, etc), it should work fine with just about any router/printserver. Although I have not been able to confirm this, I think the QL500 is a host-based printer (i.e.it does NOT support any language). This kind of printer can only be networked by either of the following:

  1. sharing it from a PC
  2. connecting it via a printserver that specifically supports the printer.

Asus do not seem to support Brother printers. They do supply printer support lists for their printservers. Click on your model in the list and check.

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  • Brother does sell a print server (PS-9000) specifically for this printer. Hopefully this functionality can be emulated somehow.
    – Elliott B
    Commented Jun 20, 2016 at 17:26
  • @Elliott Thanks for that. Unfortunately, the functionality cannot be emulated by your router, but you can plug the printserver into an RJ45 port on the router, and the printer into the printserver. That will work.
    – hdhondt
    Commented Jun 21, 2016 at 0:47

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