As OpenWRT has some support for the Mercury MAC1200R router, I thought I'd make a writeup on install
The MAC1200R is quite cheap for an AC router - its less than RMB120 ($20USD).
It has 8M flash, and 64M ram.
AR9344 Chipset / QCA9882 wifi.
Mercury is TPLinks cheaper brand, so its basically TP-Link hardware. Effectively the MAC1200R is the same as the TPLINK WL6300 (I think thats the WL3600 oversea's.)
You'll need to solder in ttl -> rs232 to get access
With the Atheros logo the right way up and the led's in front, the pinouts are:
Pin 1 is GND
Pin 2 is TX (connect to rx)
Pin 3 is RX (connect to tx)
Pin 4 don't connect.
Port speed is 115200,8,n,1
Bootloader uses the standard TP-Link entry of mashing tpl until you get in.
printenv from the bootloader:
printenv
bootargs=console=ttyS0,115200 root=31:02 rootfstype=jffs2 init=/sbin/init mtdparts=ath-nor0:256k(u-boot),64k(u-boot-env),6336k(rootfs),1408k(uImage),64k(mib0),64k(ART)
bootcmd=bootm 0x9f020000
bootdelay=1
baudrate=115200
ethaddr=0xba:0xbe:0xfa:0xce:0x08:0x41
ipaddr=192.168.1.111
serverip=192.168.1.100
dir=
lu=tftp 0x80060000 ${dir}u-boot.bin&&erase 0x9f000000 +$filesize&&cp.b $fileaddr 0x9f000000 $filesize
lf=tftp 0x80060000 ${dir}db12x${bc}-jffs2&&erase 0x9f050000 +0x630000&&cp.b $fileaddr 0x9f050000 $filesize
lk=tftp 0x80060000 ${dir}vmlinux${bc}.lzma.uImage&&erase 0x9f680000 +$filesize&&cp.b $fileaddr 0x9f680000 $filesize
stdin=serial
stdout=serial
stderr=serial
ethact=eth0
Further details here - http://www.computersolutions.cn/blog/20 … fi-router/
Seems like a decent enough router. Only downside is that its 100M ethernet vs 1G ethernet, otherwise its a good buy for the price!