EPSON EW-452A on Arch

The new family printer, an EPSON EW-452A, was delivered. I set it up on all the computers yesterday. It was unbearably slow to use over Wi-Fi on Windows, where we will need to stick with a USB connection, but it works fine over Wi-Fi on my wife’s Mac and my Linux systems. This blog post is an overview of getting it working on Arch Linux, the OS I run on my daily driver.

Printer Configuration

The configuration on Linux uses an IP address, so the printer must be configured with a static IP address. The printer allows you to configure the Wi-Fi connection using the screen and buttons on the printer itself, but only basic settings are available, and there is no way to specify custom network settings with a static IP address. There are two ways to configure a static IP address: in the router or in the printer.

A static IP address can be configured in the DHCP server in the router, based on the MAC address of the printer. The way that this is done depends on your router, of course.

A static IP address can be configured in the printer using the EpsonNet Config software. It looks like this software only runs on Windows, unfortunately. The EPSON EW-452A model is not listed in the list of supported printers, but it works. After installing and starting the software, it should detect the printer automatically. Open the printer configuration, and set it to use manual settings instead of automatic settings. You need to configure the following IPv4 settings. I am including some example values, not the actual values for my LAN.

Linux Configuration

Install the cups and cups-pdf packages, if they are not installed already. Make sure that the service is started and enabled.

$ sudo pacman -S cups cups-pdf
$ sudo systemctl start cups.service
$ sudo systemctl enable cups.service

Install the epson-inkjet-printer-escpr package from AUR. This package includes the drivers for many EPSON printers.

$ sudo aura -A epson-inkjet-printer-escpr

Optionally install the epson-printer-utility package from AUR. This utility allows you to check ink levels, perform a nozzle check, or perform head cleaning from Linux. It requires Qt, so it can take a long time to install. If you use this utility, make sure that the service is started and enabled.

$ sudo aura -A epson-printer-utility
$ sudo systemctl start ecbd.service
$ sudo systemctl enable ecbd.service

To configure the printer, browse to http://localhost:631 to access the CUPS web interface. Authenticate using your Linux user credentials. Select the “Administration” menu and click on the “Add Printer” button. The printer should be discovered automatically. Note that the connection is set to a URL like lpd://192.168.0.200:515/PASSTHRU. When selecting the driver, the EW-452A model is not in the list, but it should work with the EW-052A model.

It is a bit annoying that the EW-452A model is not available even though it is listed in the documentation. I confirmed that the PPD file does not exist in the /usr/share/ppd/epson-inkjet-printer-escpr/ directory. I checked the driver source and confirmed that it is not there either. I checked my wife’s Mac and found a PPD for this model there, but it did not work on Linux. Perhaps PPD files are not cross-platform…

Install the imagescan (and optionally xsane) packages for scanning. Install the imagescan-plugin-networkscan package from AUR. If you would like to use xsane from GIMP, install the xsane-gimp package as well.

$ sudo pacman -S imagescan
$ sudo aura -A imagescan-plugin-networkscan
$ sudo pacman -S xsane xsane-gimp

The imagescan package installs a program named utsushi. Configure /etc/utsushi/utsushi.conf as follows. Note that there is a sample configuration file at /etc/utsushi/utsushi.conf.sample.

[devices]

dev2.udi    = esci:networkscan://192.168.0.200:1865
dev2.model  = EW-452A
dev2.vendor = EPSON

The utsushi program provides a simple user interface. The xsane program provides many more options. When scanning an image (not a PDF), the GIMP plugin makes it very easy to scan using xsane and load the scanned image for editing.