OpenWrt on TP-Link EAP120 - Not recognised by router, no internet

My recommendation would be the following:

Keep the EAP120 disconnected from your upstream router for now -- just an ethernet connection to your computer for admin.

  1. Start by performing a reset on the router to get it back to defaults. It will reset to 192.168.1.1
  2. Log into the router and enable wireless with your desired SSID and password.
  3. make sure you can log into the wifi, get an IP address via DHCP, and connect to the router admin page and/or ssh. (do this with another device and/or disconnect the ethernet cable between your computer and the EAP120.
  4. Change the IP address of the EAP 120 to the desired IP address (IIRC, 192.168.5.5). If you do this by LuCI, keep in mind that it will auto-revert unless you can somewhat quickly get a new DHCP lease and connect your browser to 192.168.5.5 to accept and commit the change.
  5. As an extension of #4, make sure that you are getting a valid IP address in the 192.168.5.0/24 network and that the router responds at 192.168.5.5.
  6. Turn off the DHCP server.
  7. Make sure that you are no longer issued a DHCP address on your computer (renew the lease, it should fail).
  8. Set your computer manually to an address in the 192.168.5.0/24 network and ensure you can still connect to the EAP120 (test via both wired and wireless).
  9. Connect the ethernet to your main router (use the same ethernet port you used for all the admin stuff), and now see if you can get a DHCP IP address. It should be in the same range. Make sure that the DHCP supplied DNS and gateway are correct (192.168.5.1).
  10. Test to see that you can connect to the internet from your computer.

EDIT: basically the above is taking the dumb-AP approach step by step, but testing along the way.