Mercury MAC1200R v2 installation howto?

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

I just got a cheap Mercury MAC1200R. Unfortunately its a version 2. This device is supported and I can download the sysupgrade firmware.

This is not a factory to LEDE image. How do I proceed with "just" the sysupgrade image? Can/should I flash this via UART, and if so, how?

If this is a loss cause, maybe I can still return it and get a "proper" router

2

I suppose you should try to reach person who made support for it:

BTW. I tried, on GitHub and directly by mail, without success.

3

Judging from what you wrote on github I think I will abandon this project on this router. I do not have an external SPI flasher. Since you are real good with U boot and didn't manage to replace it with your own to bypass the RSA check, its to complicated for me. Maybe I can still return it...maybe I use it as an 5ghz AP for the time being. Thanks anyway.

4

I just got some information from Daniel and it seems that overwriting 2nd-stage U-Boot (to be able to store there U-Boot environments) is for now the only way to make it working with LEDE. If I find some free time, I will take a look into this, I still have this device here.

5

That sounds great! I will keep the device around. Keep me updated. If there is anything I can do to help, let me know. I am familiar with TTL to USB, serial console etc.

6

So I managed to do it the "dirty" way. The only way I could think of to have the router boot LEDE was to replace the U-Boot with a more generic one. This works for me until someone smarter figures out how to bypass the RSA verification/or sign the firmware.

I updated the DTS to include most of the GPIO's (the 5Ghz Wifi is still missing). Included a section for pinctrl. The device won't boot without. Updated the Memory part to 64MB RAM.

The MT76 driver has the same problems like others are describing. 5 Ghz works fine, 2.4 Ghz is buggy.

7

I got an PM about this device so I will make a short comment here as well.

Even I got it fully working by replacing the uboot, I wouldn't recommend this router as "OpenWRT supported". I think this device is mainly sold in China and for the same amount of money I would recommend the WR1200JS (China Telecom branded version). This will get you a much better device which is fully supported, has the MT7621 (gigabit ether vs fast-ether in the MT7628) with 128/16 vs 64/8 and USB port.