I own TP-Link TL-WR945N and I dissembled it to find that it's very similar to TL-WR940N. The only difference is that the chassis is different and it seems that TL-WR940N had its PSU built in in early versions. The question is, is it safe to flash mine with TL-WR940N firmware?
Aside from what has already been said, you also would need to verify that the electrical schematic is identical (at least for all logic and network functions) for it to be possible to "drop in" firmware from another device. If there are differences even on something as simple as a I2C or SPI or GPIO pin, it could mean the difference between the hardware being functional and a brick.
Those circuit boards in the picture aren't even close to similar! One has a soldered screen around the cpu and some of the perimeter components are missing or not even placed at the same place.
The actual wire tracks are not placed at same places either so that would probably mean they are connected to different pins.
But isn’t it possible to run a ram image to see what happens?
during my "research" i found a bunch of models with same SoC, PCB and NAND (is it really nand and not nor, whatever). It's kinda pointless to just re engineer it all especially this way, plus 940 pcb may just be double sided or i dunno.... most of the traces are still there and it's the connection and continuity between pins that matters, not the placement
Just by curiosity on the hardware, do you mind me asking what those three grey cables in the pictures that all are cold soldered to the circuit board actually do?
Ok wonderful I must say, I don’t think I have ever seen a GHz antenna cable soldered to a circuit board like that and I have seen a lot of radios inside…
And they seem to do it on every device!?
Wonder what the SNR, reflection levels and actual radio output quality is on these devices?
Wonder if they actually was EMC certified like this or they had proper connectors at certificate process and is using a “cheeper solution” at mass production!?
How far away can you go from these devices until you start loosing wifi dots in the client?
I am not surprised that you loose Tx power really fast with that technical solution.
It has almost guaranteed a EMC certification or it isn’t allowed as transmitter in EU (the device in one of the pictures are a EU device).
But the EMC diploma is often printed in the user manual and not on the actual device.