Is there any info about adding openwrt support for MikroTik hAP ax Lite?
Looks like it has 256MB RAM. Same as Fritz!Repeater 1200AX with the same IPQ5010. So the chances are quite low as far as I know.
See also Support for AVM Fritz Repeater 1200 AX - #3 by RolandoMagico
Previously asked here:
Just for the record I am playing with this device;
Has a 32mbit (4MB) 1.8v SPI NOR flash for boot etc, and a 128MByte SPI NAND flash (appears to be on different SPI bus)
10-pin UART header on the board has: (SPI is the NOR boot SPI bus)
NOTE everything is 1.8v!
1=SPI CLK
2=GND
3=SPI DO
4=SPI /WE (not sure - is at 1v8)
5=SPI CS
6=RX (NOTE 1.8v!)
7=TX (NOTE 1.8v!)
8=3v3
9=SPI DI
10=GND
The RX/TX normally are just idle, there is no boot message nor do they do anything if you enable them in the Mikrotik OS as a console.
However the same trick on other Mikrotik IPQ routers does bring them alive:
I desoldered and read the NOR flash, looked for the "Hard" partition, and found the uart enable parameter.
At offset 0x210048 there is the byte sequence:
15 00 04 00 01 00 28 08
change this to
15 00 04 00 00 00 28 08
and you get RouterBoot messages and console. You don't get Kernel bootup messages without further fiddling, but this is a start...
RouterBOOT booter 7.8
L41G-2axD
CPU frequency: 800 MHz
Memory size: 256 MiB
NAND size: 128 MiB
Press Ctrl+E to enter etherboot mode
Press <delete> key within 2 seconds to enter setup..
loading kernel... OK
setting up elf image... OK
jumping to kernel code
Starting...
Starting services...
Once the serial port is enabled as above (IDK yet of any other way than editing the NOR flash chip), the usual Mikrotik RouterOS serial stuff works on the serial port, e.g.
/system console disable 0
/port set serial0 baud-rate=19200 data-bits=8 parity=none stop-bits=1
/system serial-terminal serial0
This first disables the default RouterOS console on that port, then sets baud, then lets you just type stuff and see it come out of the serial port.
Obviously this a 256MB RAM unit (the RAM is onchip on the SOC) so Ath11k yadda yadda.
HOWEVER note that 8devices have a QSDK (Qualcomm's fork) of OpenWRT build on their wiki for the IPQ5000 and a suitable UBoot
https://wiki.8devices.com/cherry
This ^^ image is I believe set up for NOR flash so one could in theory flash this onto e.g. a 16MByte SPI flash (note; must be 1.8v compatible chip) and ignore the NAND onboard. 8devices provide a ready-built binary image but it's also possible to build your own given the provided instructions, and this produces both an IPQ5000 and 5010 binary. USB kernel modules are included.
Note this is an IPQ5010 which has USB. It has an LGA footprint on the underside of the PCB to solder in a modem. The footprint is for an FG621 modem, with a USB connection to the IPQ CPU.
The USB 2 HS pads are accessible here:
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Note however (to get USB) that they have also non-pop'ed two resistors on the topside of the board so these USB pads are not connected; you will want to bridge these two solderpoints on the topside of the board (just above the silkscreened logo, below the IPQ)
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This is the pinout for the modem pads, this clearly matches up what is visible on the PCB
There is (unpopulated) traces/pads for the SIM card connector.
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Huge thanks for digging in and working out the pins on this hardware, and with photos.
Even with the memory limits of ipq5010, (though having not looked at ath11k) we might be able to get these to function as a wireless station, or as a point-to-point AP?
Interested to know if you did get u-boot or Linux running on this device. I have also seen a few vendor or QSDK u-boot forks: https://git.codelinaro.org/clo/qsdk/oss/boot/u-boot-2016/-/commit/1cb16c44def4872752413427c65bcf5cfe52f318
I also saw a Qualcomm attempt to upstream ipq5018 ethernet support: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/TYZPR01MB55563BD6A2B78402E4BB44D4C9762@TYZPR01MB5556.apcprd01.prod.exchangelabs.com/
I guess @robimarko (please) would be the one to ask about if ipq50xx is still too dependent on downstream magic to bother with for now?
IPQ50xx is a dead end for now, people are working on it but its going to take a while.
And 256MB of RAM is not enough for ath11k and the rest of system.
Better option would be IPQ60xx as that at least works altough WLAN is flaky due to old FW.
So hAP ax2 and ax3 are better option.
Getting QCA U-Boot to work on these would be rather easy
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