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“A friend wanted to be able to connect two additional...”

written by Ieuanfawr on 25/05/2006

Good Points
Only £13.99 incl VAT!
Nice and small (165mm 87mm 30mm)
CD-ROM to create printer port on PC
Build-in Network Address Translation Accelerator (NATA) for firewall protection
URL Blocking function to prevent access to specific websites
Ideal for wired home network with Cable Internet ISP such as NTL or Telewest. (No built in modem, so not for ADSL telephone lines)
1 10/100M WAN interface (RJ-45) to connect with DSL or cable modem
4 10/100M RJ-45 LAN ports
1 USB1.1 Printer Port
7.5v power supply supplied.
Lots of flashing lights on the front panel.
Reliable and fast.

Bad Points
Lots of cables (7) plugged into a very small box.
Cat5 cables are extra.

General Comments
A friend wanted to be able to connect two additional laptops into the NTL cable internet link. After some research I took the risk of buying the Safecom SBRU-10100 from E-buyer.com, thinking that if it didn't work properly £14 was not great sum.



Connecting everything together was straight forward, and I already had several spare CAT5 cables. I wasn't as thorough as I should have been switching it all on for the first time, and I was annoyed there was no internet connection. However, reading the instructions helped!



Everything needs to totally powered off, including the NTL set top box (STB), and left off for several minutes. (I made a cup of tea.) First the STB was switched on and allowed to completely boot up. Then the Safecom SBRU-10100 is switched on, and allowed to completely boot up, and finally the PC is switched on and Windows loaded. All was now fine.



The laptops were connected and the internet connection was seamless.



The printer, a Canon i350 with USB connection was plugged into the Safecom SBRU-10100.

The printer port needs to be created on any computer attached to the Safecom SBRU-10100, and this requires software being run from the supplied CD-ROM. The files can also be downloaded from Safecom's website if the CD gets mislaid.



A windows utility called "WRESET" needs to be run to rest the printer connection, and then a test page from each computer printed fine first time. However, the Canon ink-jet lost its bi-directional facility but that was well outweighed by the ease of printing from any attached PC.



And of course, if the attached PCs are correctly set up as network workgroup, then file sharing is easy and fast. The 1Mb DSL connection seemed to cope OK with four people surfing simultaneously, remaining very responsive.



Safecom's website for the Safecom SBRU-10100 and driver download page:
safecom.cn/code/sub/category.asp?prdid=314&subcatid=39



This has turned out to be a great success, and is ideal for fully spec'd wired home network for people with a cable internet connection. The printer port is very handy, meaning the printer need not beplugged/unplugged for other users, and can remain place.



Highly recommended and not at all costly.