Hello,
I bought a Cisco ON100-K9_V01 very cheap because I read that OpenWrt can be installed on it. Unfortunately, I find the device page a little confusing (OpenWrt device page). Can someone help me understand what are the steps needed to get it working?
This thread also has some information, but I'm still a bit confused.
Do I need a serial connection? How do I make the tftp connection work? I have installed OpenWrt before, but nothing as involved as this.
Thank you so much!
You will need serial. The commands on the wiki page are to be entered via serial. They will command the router to load a file from a TFTP server. So you also need a TFTP server on your LAN. Usually this is done with a PC either Linux or Windows.
Unlike "real" Cisco equipment, there is no serial port on the outside. You will have to open the case to connect the serial. On the other hand, they are really cheap.
Yes that would work but the PL2303 chips can have problems on Windows. If your PC is Linux it's fine.
Ok thanks. Which chip do you recommend for Windows?
FTDI (FT232) or CP2102 chips.
Be very careful of FT232RL and PL2303HX as most cheap ones are fake. Both FTDI and Prolific makes great TTL chipsets but avoid those two specific models. CP2102/3/4 are much safer to buy if pricing > * .
@jul059, please let me know your experience with the device - after you get OpenWrt installed.
I've been considering a purchase of the ON100 myself.
It's a fun little device, but if you want real muscle power, your better of running something x86 than this. I got mine working on openwrt after some difficulties. I seem to remember that it has the tendency to go back to defaults no and then, havent run it for some time. I need to flash the latest openwrt on it and try again. A tip for whom is working on one of these units: solder a permament jtag header on it. If you ever need to go serial console again you thank yourself for putting the header pins in rather then loose wires that some people do.
I have read your thread! I'm having some difficulties myself.
I can't seem to get a reliable serial connection. At first I thought it wasn't working at all because I was receiving garbage once in a while, but after yet another round of opening the serial connection and powering on the device, I got the MARVEL boot screen up to about the clock speeds. Then it started displaying some garbage again.
I switched programs and same problem: most of the time I get nothing or garbage, then once un a while I get something that makes sense.
Here's an example of my latest attemp: very incomplete. 
Driver settings are as follows ( in order, Baud rate, data bits, parity, stop, flow)
I have connected the device TX to the computer RX.
My soldering was is less than stellar, but it seems good enough. Could it be a faulty USB dongle? bad settings? faulty device? What else?
Can you post a picture of your soldering header on the pcb? it is very(!) easy to shortcircuit the board on these tiny circuit board pads. for a reliable connection, you really should solder a serial header with copper pins in order to prevent shorting the board. this is also convenient for feature debricking/ rescue work. you can easy salvage such a header from most scrap pc motherboards.
Particularly check the ground. The ground pad is harder to solder because it is attached to more copper which draws heat away. Also be sure you're using ground for the ground and not +3.3 volts.
Try flipping combinations of software and hardware flow control as well.