Support for TP-LINK TL-R480T+ (V7)

For Developers
1

Hello,

I found nothing about TP-LINK TL-R480T+ (V7) in the supported devices here:
https://openwrt.org/toh/start

Is-it possible to add support for this device with the following informations/data:
Marque : TP-LINK
Modele : TL-R480T+
version HW : 7.0
Datasheet : https://www.tp-link.com/us/download/TL-R480T%2B_V7.html
https://www.tp-link.com/us/products/details/TL-R480T+.html#specifications

Electronic chips used in the device:
CPU : QCA9533-BL3A (MIPS 24Kc at 650 MHz, wifi bgn)
RAM : M14D5121632A -2.5B (ASK2) (64Mbytes de RAM DDR2-800 à 400Mhz)
ROM : G 25q64csig (BH1642) (8MBytes / 64MBit SPI Flash, 8Mb, SOIC-8)
other chips :
RS232 : zt1385leea (ethernet console port)
Ethernet : Group-Tek hst-2027dar ( 10/100BASE-TX TRANSFORMER MODULES) and hst-1025dr (10/100BASE-TX TRANSFORMER MODULES)
Other : NXP LVC245A (OCTAL BUS TRANSCEIVER)

PS : I will upload the device electronic card picture this evening.

Thank you

Add 04/12/18:

binwalk output for the latest firmware available for the device:

# binwalk 'TL-R480T+v7_en_1.1.0_[20150526-rel71825]_up.bin'

DECIMAL       HEXADECIMAL     DESCRIPTION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
93752         0x16E38         Certificate in DER format (x509 v3), header length: 4, sequence length: 64
113524        0x1BB74         U-Boot version string, "U-Boot 1.1.4--LSDK-10.2-00082-4 (Apr  1 2015 - 14:46:04)"
113716        0x1BC34         CRC32 polynomial table, big endian
154534        0x25BA6         LZMA compressed data, properties: 0x6E, dictionary size: 8388608 bytes, uncompressed size: 7911936 bytes
2 Likes
2

Device picture 1
tplink-r480t-global

1 Like
3

Device picture 2

tplink-r480t-abovetplink-r480t-below

1 Like
4

As you already noted, it's not listed in the Table of Hardware...are you asking for someone to work on bringing support for this device?

If so, can you also provide a boot log output of the serial console?

You haven't provided much information to begin (i.e. boot position configured in bootloader).

5

@lleachii

Hello,

Yes I'm asking for someone to work on bringing support for this device.

How can I get boot log output of the serial console ?

Where and how can I find boot position configured in bootloader ?

Thank you

6

Hello,

Yes I'm asking for someone to work on bringing support for this device.
Below the boot log output required for bringing support for this device.

Answer after a long time because I need to buy a serial console cable RJ45/ USB and find the good command line to show the boot log.
For each try, plug the cable USB connector in USB port in the computer, in a terminal launch the command line "sudo screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200", go in TP Link admin web UI and launch Reboot, very quickly copy the output boot log in the terminal in a text editor.

The boot log output of the serial console:

U-Boot 1.1.4--LSDK-10.2-00082-4 (Apr  1 2015 - 14:46:04)

board953x - Honey Bee 2.0DRAM:  
sri
Honey Bee 2.0
ath_ddr_initial_config(195): (16bit) ddr2 init
tap = 0x00000003
Tap (low, high) = (0x7, 0x36)
Tap values = (0x1e, 0x1e, 0x1e, 0x1e)
64 MB
Top of RAM usable for U-Boot at: 84000000
Reserving 161k for U-Boot at: 83fd4000
Reserving 192k for malloc() at: 83fa4000
Reserving 44 Bytes for Board Info at: 83fa3fd4
Reserving 36 Bytes for Global Data at: 83fa3fb0
Reserving 128k for boot params() at: 83f83fb0
Stack Pointer at: 83f83f98
Now running in RAM - U-Boot at: 83fd4000
Flash Manuf Id 0xc8, DeviceId0 0x40, DeviceId1 0x17
flash size 8MB, sector count = 128
Flash:  8 MB
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Net:   ath_gmac_enet_initialize...
No valid address in Flash. Using fixed address
No valid address in Flash. Using fixed address
ath_gmac_enet_initialize: reset mask:c02200 
Scorpion ---->S27 PHY*
S27 reg init
: cfg1 0x800c0000 cfg2 0x7114
eth0: 00:03:7f:09:0b:ad
athrs27_phy_setup ATHR_PHY_CONTROL 4 :1000
athrs27_phy_setup ATHR_PHY_SPEC_STAUS 4 :10
eth0 up
Honey Bee ---->  MAC 1 S27 PHY *
S27 reg init
ATHRS27: resetting s27
ATHRS27: s27 reset done
: cfg1 0x800c0000 cfg2 0x7214
eth1: 00:03:7f:09:0b:ad
athrs27_phy_setup ATHR_PHY_CONTROL 0 :1000
athrs27_phy_setup ATHR_PHY_SPEC_STAUS 0 :10
athrs27_phy_setup ATHR_PHY_CONTROL 1 :1000
athrs27_phy_setup ATHR_PHY_SPEC_STAUS 1 :10
athrs27_phy_setup ATHR_PHY_CONTROL 2 :1000
athrs27_phy_setup ATHR_PHY_SPEC_STAUS 2 :10
athrs27_phy_setup ATHR_PHY_CONTROL 3 :1000
athrs27_phy_setup ATHR_PHY_SPEC_STAUS 3 :10
eth1 up
eth0, eth1
Setting 0x181162c0 to 0x4b97a100
### main_loop: bootcmd="go 0x9f040000"
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
## Starting application at 0x9F040000 ...
TP-LINK >
2 Likes
7

Hello! Any support changes?

8

There's no point on bringing 8mb flash devices on board today, they will be EOLed after next stable release, due to insufficient flash capacity.

1 Like
9

Hello,

  1. As D-Link EBR-2310 C1
    https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/d-link/d-link_ebr-2310_c1
    is not supported by OpenWRT and it is in TOH,
    is it possible to create an entry in the Table of Hardware
    for TP-LINK TL-R480T+ like this
    https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wa801nd
    for all the versions ?

  2. If I have more spare time, il will try to build a firmware for TP-LINK TL-R480T+ (V7) by following the steps for
    TP-Link TL-WA801ND (V4) that use the same CPU but only 4MB ROM and 32MB for RAM
    https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wa801nd
    or
    TP-Link TL-WR841HP v3 that use the same CPU but 8MB ROM and 64MB for RAM
    https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/tp-link/tp-link_tl-wr841hp_v3

Source code patch for support for TP-Link TL-WR841HP v3 (OpenWRT 22.x)
https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=commit;h=c5235f6b2441a6b531622b76b66c354896c0dae0

Source code patch for support for TL-WA801ND V3 (OpenWRT 18.x):

Source code patch for support for TL-WA801ND V4 (OpenWRT 18.x):

For 8mb flash devices on board today, we can try to save RAM to build a firmware :

The late available firmware for TP-LINK TL-R480T+ (V7) from TP-LINK was in 2015:

Then an OpenWRT firmware even if it is old (18.06.9 (December 2020)) or 2.03.04 (April 2023) is better than the old TP-LINK firmware (May 2015) for security.

  1. Is it a better documentation than http://oldwiki.archive.openwrt.org/doc/guide-developer to know all the steps to : get the data to create the source code, create the patch for the code to add a router in OpenWRT and to build and upload the firmware to test in the router ?

Best regards.

10

There's a difference between an already supported router with 8mb flash, and new additions, with the same flash size.

If you create a commit today, it'll be in snapshot during the release of Openwrt 23, but never make it into stable, because of the limited flash.

If I were you, I'd ask in https://forum.openwrt.org/c/site-feedback/3, if commits for 8mb devices were still accepted.

11

As long as adding device support is straight forward, pretty much only DTS and image generation code (and maybe some trivial network/ LED preconfiguration), a PR adding support would most likely be accepted nevertheless, but more fundamental changes (new drivers, heavier target changes, etc.) probably won't be. Just don't expect much interest and participation from others to work on these devices.

(this is basically the same policy that applied to 4/32 devices before)

2 Likes