Mesh/Hardware experiments

This page documents various hardware experiments started 5th of July 2016. Using new types of hardware as home nodes and external antennas and wifi usb sticks.

1. Nexx WT3020F - Very cheap home node ($12.50)

• Cheap: $12.50 shipped
• Single band 2.4 GHz
• Two PCB trace antennas. No plugs, not even internal.
• Two ethernet interfaces
• One USB plug for host mode USB
• Tiny physical form factor
• USB powered (comes with usb cable but no power adaptor)
• Not AR71xx (ramips mt7620)

Juul (talk) loaded OpenWRT onto one of these and started a compile of sudowrt for this chipset. OpenWRT seems to work fine.

The firmware was flashed via the existing web UI which is available on 192.168.8.1 with user/pass admin/admin.

1. RT5572N - Dual-band single radio USB wifi adapter ($6)

• Two PCB trace radios
• Two u.fl connectors
• Does either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz

Juul (talk) tested this on a Nexx WT3020F and it seems to work quite well. Here's how to install the driver:

opkg update  
opkg install kmod-rt2800-lib kmod-rt2800-usb kmod-rt2x00-lib kmod-rt2x00-usb  

Seems to support an arbitrary number of ad-hoc/client/master mode wifi interfaces (tested up to 8).