Today saw me finally buy a printer. An OKI C3300.
I had originally ordered an Epson C1100, but the company I ordered through kept ringing to tell me that they were still awaiting stock. I cancelled that order on Wednesday last week and looked at some of the other suggestions that they’d made.
I eventually came back to the OKI C3300 on PC World and noticed the price wasn’t too different to ordering online. So I placed an online order, but specified to pick it up in store as I’m not going to be round much this week for a delivery.
Whilst the box and advertising paraphernalia says the printer supports Mac OS X, I’d like to point out that this is very limited support. They’ve got a very basic driver to make the printer work on OS X, but the driver and printer don’t support Bonjour.
For those non-mac readers Bonjour helps with networking and using equipment by discovering services automatically. It makes using things on a Mac very easy indeed.
Without support for Bonjour and lacking any intelligent drivers, this printer does not work on an Airport Express via USB, even though my Mac could pick the printer up. No matter how many different configurations I tried, it just would not work.
The next step was to try using the printer via ethernet. I didn’t want to plug the printer directly into my Mac Pro as there are other computers I wanted to be able to use the printer with. Ethernet failed to work initially. For some reason it couldn’t pick up an IP address and I ran into all sorts of problems trying to assign it one manually (what manufacturer assigns a password to the software set up without then telling you what it is!?).
After about forty-five minutes of messing around, I finally managed to get the printer set up and operational on my home network. It even works from a windows computer and my two Macs. I do wonder how those slightly less technically minded people would manage to get the printer operational however.
Update (Dec 17th)
I’m going to be ordering some new cartridges as I’m down to about 20% black and 40% on each colour. May as well order an entire set as it works out slightly cheaper.
The Oki 3300 uses four toner printer cartridges that, according to the sales spiel, have a page yield of 2000 A4 pages at coverage of 5% - the codes they use are Black: 43459340, Cyan 43459339, Magenta 43459338 and Yellow 43459337. I’ve not counted how many pages I’ve printed, but it’s quite a lot!
Ha… you should have stuck with the C1100… although i have the “N” version.. a slightly better model… its a way better printer.. plug and print literally.. even via Airport!!
It’s a bit older than the one I have, but you’re right about it being easier to use. It’s being discontinued, which is why I was having troubles getting it from various places.
The C3300 comes with ethernet built into it as standard ;)
I think my IP problems may have been down to a dodgey network cable I made up!
I have just bought a c3300 and can;t get it to work with my intel iMac at all. I have a wireless router (but the mac is plugged into it directly) - can I plug the printer into the router and get around it that way?
When you say you used ethernet, does this mean connecting the printer to the mac directly but using an ethernet cable or via the router?
NOT a techie hence stupid questions…
You should be able to plug the printer into your router via ethernet. If you have some custom IP settings in your router, you may have to go the long way round and assign the printer it’s own IP address.
Try plugging it in via ethernet first, then install the driver stuff, then add a new printer. You have to go to printers, add new printer, click more printers, choose OKI TCP/IP from the top drop down and it should be ready to go.
I have the same problem regarding setting up the TCP/IP configuration on my OKI C3300. David, can you please enlight me what the login user and password is for the OKI?
The password is something to do with the MAC address of the printer. It’s actually all listed in the documentation that comes on the install CD.
I have OKI C3300n working ok on my network. What I found is that it is best to assign an IP address (through the web interface), as otherwise it varies, and the printer drivers may not find it every time.
My trouble is the lack of a Linux driver.
Hi everybody,
I mananged to connect my newly purchased Oki C3000n through the irect ethernet, but I haven´t got a clue how to get it working through my router. So far I have set up the internal ethernetcard in the printer, but can I get the printer to work through my airport express connection ? Does anybody know how to find the printer on the network, search for it or smething I need some assistance, I would be very happy if anybody that have had the same problem would share information.
Magdi
Hi Magdi,
The OKI 3300N won’t work through airport express as it doesn’t support bonjour or apple talk. You can however set it up with a fixed router just fine.
If you have DHCP enabled in your router, it should (in theory) pick up an address automatically and you can use it by installing the right network driver for OS X. I did have issues with it getting it’s own address via DHCP so had to manually set an IP address.
In order to set the IP address manually, you need to use the Network Card Setup program that came on one of the CD’s with the printer. You’ll also need to find out the default password for the printer, something to do with the mac address if I remember rightly, which you can find on the documentation CD.
Hello from Australia,
We just bought a OKI 3300 and have a stand alone Mac running 10.3.9
Try as we might we can’t get the Printer Setup Utility to see the OKI
(We have tried drivers from the OKI website and the installation CD)
Do we need to connect via a ethernet cable ?
That would mean we then need a router as we have used the ethernet port to connect the broadband modem.
I was assuming we should be able to connect with a USB.
Is this possible ?
Thanks for your help,
Michael
Would you mind sharing HOW you got it working on your network? Maybe then “those slightly less technically minded people would manage to get the printer operational”. It would be greatly appreciated.
My last comment, two up from yours, explains how to set the IP address and find out the password. The printer comes with two CD’s, the first being drivers, the latter being documentation and other software. You need to use the second CD and install the software and look through the documentation.
THe software (Network Card Setup) is used to change the IP address. I suggest plugging the printer into your mac directly with an ethernet cable and then running that software. It should auto-sense it. Click on the printer it finds then click on Printer in the menu bar and select IP Address.
This is all in the documentation provided on the second CD.
Thanks David. It turned out to be a problem with the network, as I got it to work on a different one.
Now I’m struggling with accurate color reproduction, but that’s a different story. The colors actually look more natural when printing from a Windows machine with default settings than from a Mac using default settings. Never had a Mac be more fiddly than a PC before!