Just snagged one for $38.30, won't have it in my hands i until end of Dec, but I'm not in a rush..
I'm currently on holidays and without access to the wiki. You could try on IRC (instructions on how to add a new brand are in the wiki). If nobody can take this request, it needs to wait until I'm back (02.01.2023).
Managed to figure it out by myself, enjoy your vacation, @tmomas
Did a mistake during entry creation though, techdata page says RG-E5, instead of AX3200-E5, and URL is https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/reyee/reyee_rg-e5.
Following up from the "802.11ax Routers" thread ...
Thank you again for the photos of how to gain access to this router's serial port in order to install OpenWRT!
I also found a teardown on acwifi.net which suggests that it might not be too hard to remove the upper heatsink and get access to the serial port from the top of the board.
These are still dirt-cheap in "Open Box" condition on eBay, and so rather tempting, even if only to experiment with.
Now that you've put OpenWRT on your router, how do you feel that it compares in signal strength to the E8450/RT3200?
Didn't want to risk the thermal conducting tapes, and flipping the PCB over isn't really hard.
Plus you'd need a more permanent solution, with a cable, unless you're going to remove the
heat sink every time you want serial access, or drill a hole through the heat sink.
You could also make a small hole in the plastic case, to access the pins, from the bottom..
Don't own any of those, so I can't really make the comparison, and I've already packed it up,
and put it up for sale, device documented, mission accomplished.
1 Like
Thanks, and thank you for your work in helping to make OpenWRT available for the RG-E5.
I just flashed a Reyee RG-E5. Electrical tape to hold wires in contact with the board GND, RX and TX holes, with my USB dongle connected to those wired as if they were pogo pins worked fine.
I'm really liking the Reyee RG-E5, and compared it to an RT3200. In my office a couple walls from (and on the same floor as) my first floor AP I am getting roughly 500/300 down/up on a 2x2 ax200 intel client from the Reyee, versus roughly 300/200 using the RT3200 in the same AP and client locations.
I performed the preceding comparison using 80 MHz width 802.11ax, with both routers set to channel 149 (the only 5 GHz channel range the RT3200 will go up to 27 dBm power with in the U.S. for some reason, even though this and the lower channel 36 range should both allow 30 dBm in the U.S.) and using iperf3 to measure throughput between the ax200 client and a NanoPi R4S on the network - using the AP to connect the client to the network of course.
The 6 db external 5 GHz antennas on the Reyee provide the best horizontal (same floor) coverage I've had yet. From best to worst, over intermediate to longer ranges through walls, I would roughly rank the devices I've experimented with over the years with respect to dumb AP performance as follows: Reyee RG-E5, Linksys EA8500, [Belkin RT3200, Askey RT4230W Rev 6, Dynalink DL-WRX36; these 3 in "" are all close in performance, but I would still rank them in the order listed], Linksys EA6350v3, TP-Link Archer C7. This is a subjective ranking based on my personal priorities of intermediate to long range performance. Your mileage may vary.
For the price (lightly used) on ebay, the Reyee RG-E5 seems to be a fantastic 802.11ax AP option. The 16MB flash is a bit small and no USB, but neither is a problem for my dumb AP use. For wider ranging applications, only 16MB of flash could force some small compromises.
2 Likes
Thanks for the report, it looks like a really-interesting option for a cheap dumb-AP for those that can and wish to open it up and use the serial port.
For my own personal setup, I just decided to get a second RT3200 instead, while they're still available.
I just bought a Reyee RG-E5 and I am having trouble understanding the flashing process. How doe I serve the initramfs.img? I renamed the downloaded file to initramfs.img. I have changed pc's ip address and tftp64 set up to 10.10.10.3 and plugged the router lan to my pc lan but I am not understanding what to do afterwards.
I soldered 3 pins for the serial connection and I get is "reyee login"
This is my first time doing this.
Then you've already missed your window of opportunity, during the boot sequence.
Thx for the info. I now realize that you must stop the sequence once you boot up. I am now having an issue of sending the initramfs.img. Do I need to rename kernal.bin to initramfs.img? I am still new to this so I am not sure what to do. I can reach System Load Linux to SDRAM via TFTP in Putty but it does not flash.
It tells you what file it's trying to pull, but if there's no activity on the TFTP server, make sure you've disabled the hosts firewall.
Thx mate. send the initramfs.img . It is now showing openwrt in putty console. How do I do the last step? Flashing sysupgrade firmware?
Yes, I have seen the website but web inteface is not working. I go to 192.168.1.1 but openwrt site. Putty show Openwrt Snapshot though
This isn't because you've still got a static IP on the computer, for the TFTP transfer?
Already changed back to automatic IP
In that case, transfer the sysupgrade image to the routers /tmp dir, and run
sysupgrade /tmp/sysupgradeimage.file.name
Note, since it's a snapshot image, it won't have webUI, you'll need to install it post flash, or add it using the online image builder, pre flash.
Does it make a difference if my reyee rg-e5 is v1.1? I just notice it on the box.