Printer Cable Limitation

Typically, 25 feet (8M) is the practical limit.
In reality, it depends upon the limits of the printer and the printer port(s).

If you purchase high quality cables, you may be able to print at 15M (50 ft).
We have been doing this at the office where I work. We had 7 PCs through a switch to a single printer. Some had 56 feet (17M) of unbuffered cable between the PC and the printer.
The results did vary by printer and PC. We had our best luck with a Canon BJC620.
And our worst with an Epson 800 something or other.

Bottom line; it is not suppossed to work, but may work acceptably. The quality of the cables is of primary importance.

I have had the same experience as Chas. 7.5m is the "legal" limit, but I have stretched this to 15m, in an "electronically quiet" envirnonment. I think the other key consideration was that we used one long cable, rather than connecting 2, which I believe would have introduced too much resistance/interference.

Alternatively, you can setup a small print server on your LAN, and run the printer off the back of that. Some printers even come with an optional built-in print server.

There is not real limit to printer cable length. I have run 50ft (15m) cables with no problem, and 150ft(45m) using switch boxes. What you need is good quality SHIELDED cables. The problem is, cables will pickup electronic "noise". The longer the cable, the more electronic interference it will get. Shielded cables go a long way towards reducing problems.
Hope that helps.

OK guys it aint the printer. To qoute a famous line, "it's the cable stupid!" Shielded cable is good but the paramount thing is the size of the wires in the cable. The longer the cable the bigger the resistance to the movement of electrons, therefore the thickness (gauge) of the wires is important to limit signal loss. That weak signal your computer sends down the cable to your printer is only reliable to 50 ft. This is part of IEEE1284 standard.

This question was closed by the author