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Topic: Mercury MAC1200R

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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!

Even though I don't own a SPI flasher, a how to flash the uboot would be greatly appreciated.

Have two of those MAC1200Rs, bought them in China two weeks ago, they weren't very easy to find ....

(Last edited by frollic on 13 Apr 2015, 12:33)

Bit of a late reply (i don't often visit!)


https://github.com/pepe2k/u-boot_mod#how-to-install-it

uBoot sits here - 0x9f000000

As per above -
256k(u-boot)
64k(u-boot-env)

So 0x9f000000-0x9f0040000 is available



---
To flash (assuming a < 128kb uboot)

Suggest load in ram at 0x80060000 like they do, and flash from there.

eg from the bootloader –

tfpboot 0x80060000 uboot.bin
erase 0x9f000000 +0x20000
cp.b 0x80060000 0x9f000000 0x20000

Pray that it didn’t mess up (or you need an spi flasher…), and reboot!

(Last edited by computersolutions on 25 May 2015, 08:48)

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