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Thread: Make an expansion board with a serial port(s) for WL-500b/g

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  1. #1
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    Thumbs up Make an expansion board with a serial port(s) for WL-500b/g

    Yes it is possible - I have made and tested this RS232 interface yet (see the bootup messages from PMON below).
    Please note you will loose the warranty by this modification as there is a warranty label that you will have to remove.
    There's no impact to the router's mainboard as the expansion card is connected through onboard connector only and it can be removed anytime.

    You will need just few electronic parts to make the expansion board.
    - UART or DUART chip (16c552,16c550,16c450,82c50,...)
    - XTAL 13 MHz (or close to 13 MHz)
    - MAX232 or equivalent (two pieces if you plan to use DUART)
    - some passive elements - capacitors, resistors, connectors

    The schematic will follow later on (as soon as I convert it to electronic form somehow...)


    Messages from PMON during the boot:
    PMON version 5.3.22 [EL], LSI LOGIC Corp. and Broadcom Corp.
    Compiled on Fri Apr 25 15:24:08 2003
    CPU type 4710.CPU clock frequency 125 MHz.Avail RAM 16384 KBytes.
    NVRAM: AMD 29lv320DT 2Mx16 TopB.
    Visit www.carmel.com for updates.

    ~Downloading os image in 3 seconds
    Using specified MAC address.
    et0: Broadcom BCM47xx 10/100 Mbps Ethernet Controller 3.11.19.0
    MAC Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
    Opened ethernet
    Downloading from ethernet, ^C to abort
    Downloading image time out
    Boot os from the flash
    CRC OK
    Uncompressing..................................... ................done
    Doing command call 80001000

  2. #2
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    technik NICE work! can you supply us with some nice pics for reference till you finish the schematics?

    My little Asus Collection: Too much to fit inhere, my 2 babies:WL500w 1.9.2.7-10(OLEG) VX2SE Yellow Lamborghini notebook



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  3. #3
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    Smile

    Quote Originally Posted by Antiloop
    technik NICE work! can you supply us with some nice pics for reference till you finish the schematics?
    OK then... But it's a bit brutal so don't be disgusted with this please!
    BTW I would like to say THANK YOU to hwsoft for providing me with the UART chips and to Antiloop as well for the information about ASUS hardware. Thanks guys!
    Attached Images Attached Images     
    Last edited by Technik; 13-02-2005 at 19:46.

  4. #4
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    nice nice

    thank you 2

    so i can just use those old uart chips from old ISA cards or similair, nice upcoming project sometime..

    My little Asus Collection: Too much to fit inhere, my 2 babies:WL500w 1.9.2.7-10(OLEG) VX2SE Yellow Lamborghini notebook



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  5. #5
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    Yes you can use an old chips if they can operate at 13 MHz clock rate. That's why I put the UART to socket - sometimes it's not easy to find a datasheet of some specific chip... 16c55x recommended because of FIFO buffer.
    It should be also possible to use XTAL with lower frequency and change the serial port initialization to get the same baud rate.

    BTW this is a list of PMON commands:
    Code:
    ...
    Opened ethernet
    Downloading from ethernet, ^C to abort
    break!
    ~PMON> h
          h  The help command                           m  modify memory
       copy  copy memory                                d  display memory
       fill  fill memory                           search  search memory
    compare  compare memory                         uncmp  Uncompress gzip file
        set  display/set variable                   unset  remove variable
         hi  display command history                 vers  display version info
       load  load memory from hostport               call  call function
      cp2fl  Copy Ram to Flash                     nvInit  no options
    nvErase  no options                            etdiag  enet diag. test
     ildiag  iline diag. test                      rmdiag  sdram diag. test
     mpdiag  mass production diag. test           pcidiag  pci interface diag. test
    pmadiag  pcmcia interface diag. test          leddiag  led gpio interface diag. test
    usbdiag  usb interface diag. test             plpdiag  parallel port interface diag. test
    PMON>
    The help function is working also for every listed command.
    Last edited by Technik; 08-07-2004 at 03:41.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Technik
    OK then... But it's a bit brutal so don't be disgusted with this please!
    BTW I would like to say THANK YOU to hwsoft for providing me with the UART chips and to Antiloop as well for the information about ASUS hardware. Thanks guys!
    Seems you have 2.x firmware, which uses different header for connecting UART. 1.x has something proprietary.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Oleg
    Seems you have 2.x firmware, which uses different header for connecting UART. 1.x has something proprietary.
    Yes, Oleg - the router HW revision is 2.40. Revision 1.00 uses a different connector which is quite hard to obtain (see photos here: http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=8).

  8. #8
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    which are the first 2 letters/numbers of your serial Technik/Oleg ?
    eg it will start with a 3 of 4

    i want to know since when the v2 hardware is sold

    my youngest unit is from december 2003 also produced in dec-2003

    My little Asus Collection: Too much to fit inhere, my 2 babies:WL500w 1.9.2.7-10(OLEG) VX2SE Yellow Lamborghini notebook



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  9. #9
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    2.x units has MACs starting with 00:0e: as seems, while 1.x has 00:0c:.
    Mine is 1.4 and was bought in Germany in nov-dec 2003, do not know exactly.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Antiloop
    which are the first 2 letters/numbers of your serial Technik/Oleg ?
    eg it will start with a 3 of 4

    i want to know since when the v2 hardware is sold

    my youngest unit is from december 2003 also produced in dec-2003
    Mine starts with:
    42, MAC 00:0e... HW rev. 2.40 (WL-500g)
    3A, MAC 00:0c... HW rev. 1.00 (WL-500b)
    Last edited by Technik; 09-07-2004 at 01:30. Reason: Update

  11. #11
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    Is this supposed to work with wl500gx too?

    I don't know much about these things, but why do we need that winbond IC? What's it doing? I saw serveral howtos for wrt54g, which only requires rs232 ic.
    Josephus
    HuWiCo - Hungarian Wireless Community
    http://www.huwico.hu

  12. #12
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    wl500gx should work in the same way as wrt54g, it does not need an external uart.

  13. #13
    Aynone has a better schematics?
    There are some things that I don't understand on this one...

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alice
    Aynone has a better schematics?
    There are some things that I don't understand on this one...
    OK, check the updated post here: http://wl500g.info/showpost.php?p=3312&postcount=3
    The bottom file should be a bit better.
    Last edited by Technik; 13-02-2005 at 23:22.

  15. #15
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    Hi

    I wonder how the Serial port is done on this Microsoft Box with Broadcom Chip. 4702 is the same as in wl500, but the board has only a 12pin connector labelt with rs232 which is not enough for a 8bit Bus interface...

    Greets
    My Stuff: WL-500g, Mapower H31x 10GB HD, Philips Webcam Vesta PRO, TerraTec Webcam PRO, USB Hub

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