Thursday, 22 February 2024

OpenWRT + Plusnet Hub One: #2 hardware mods

The router needs wires soldered to the board.

Sounds easy!

The extra wires provide access to a serial port.

But first, the case has to be opened.

Sounds easy!

This is all explained in the procedure: https://www.linuxscrew.com/openwrt-bt-homehub-5-instructions

Note: since this blog is primarily a journal for me, to compensate for my poor memory, I'm only documenting aspects of this project that may be useful to me beyond the LinuxScrew article linked above.

As the required serial wires needed to be connected to a USB <> serial adapter, I initially chose wire colours to sit side-by-side on the adapter connector.

This is my adapter...


...which came from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/DAOKAI-USB-UART-Converter-Adapter-Multifunctional/dp/B0BCKBHQ8Y


The wires are connected to the modem pcb as follows:-

TXD    orange wire    R77: below NAND flash, solder pad to right

RXD    yellow             R78: directly below R77 to the left, pad to the right

GND    green            solder pad for WPS switch closes to NAND flash

Boot    blue            R45: below R78 to the right, pad above



 

However, I forgot that RXD & TXD had to be crossed. So this is how they must be connected to the adapter...

 


Note the adapter switch positions:-

I drilled a hole in the lower corner of the router for ribbon cable entry...


The solder pads on the pcb are extremely small, so a bit of a nightmare to solder and I've taped the wires down as recommended and used tie-wraps for strain relief...



Once the box is back in one piece, that completes the electro-mechancal stuff.


See also:-

 OpenWRT + Plusnet Hub One: #1

 OpenWRT + Plusnet Hub One: #3



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