Help extending OpenWrt router range with TP-Link router

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
1

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some help extending the range of my OpenWrt router using a TP-Link router. The TP-Link router has the following modes available: Wireless Router, WISP, Access Point, and Range Extender. When I tried using the range extender mode, I couldn't find my OpenWrt router in the list of scanned access points.

I suspect this might have something to do with the fact that both routers are currently using the same MAC address. My ISP filters MAC addresses, and I originally set up the TP-Link router. So now I use the TP-Link's MAC address to make the OpenWrt router work.

I'm hoping someone here might have some experience with this and be able to offer some advice on how to get the OpenWrt router to show up on the access point list when using the TP-Link router in range extender mode, or just any other way to get my TP-Link router to extend the range of my OpenWrt router. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Router info:
TP-Link TL-WR845N
D-Link DIR-853 A3 running OpenWrt 22.03.5

Thanks in advance for your help.

2

Two devices in the same network segment mustn't ever share the same MAC, that's a hard no-go and breaks everything.

3

I see. Would changing the TP-Link's MAC address help? If so, what should I change it to? Just a random string of letters and numbers? Sorry, I'm very much a beginner to this stuff.

4

No.

You can access uboot over serial and printenv/ saveenv there, if you have to (really? why?), but don't mess it up unless you really have to (and git offsets and block sizes right).

5

Thanks for your reply, but I respectfully have no clue what any of that means :sob:. Do you recommend that I use one of the other modes that the router has to extend my range?

6

If running the stock firmware, you must enable WDS over the first router.

Is this with the WiFi or the wired connection? If the wired connection - the second router will have a different MAC for the WiFi and also the MAC of the first one will be over the WAN side, so it won't be visible over the WiFi.