Very nice router for the price since 5ghz routers entered the scene.
make sure its a v2+ from the sticker on the bottom of the box or the bottom of the router its a great buy for 60-80 dollars. web update the 700 mhz router with the latest factory image of LEDE 17.10. nice to get matching pair if you are to be connecting them as access points.
rename to something shorter like openwrt.bin then use the tplink firmware updater lede-17.01.4-ar71xx-generic-archer-c7-v2-squashfs-factory.bin should work everytime.
one of my v2 routers had an issue with openwrt that just worked on another v2 router. this router features 5 ghz which over short ranges 150 – 250 feet works great. some say 1km range are doable but i dont see how it could.
telnet 192.168.1.1
opkg update with the network plugged into the wan or connect via wireless using luci http://192.168.1.1
opkg install block-mount kmod-fs-ext4 kmod-usb-storage-extras kmod-usbip kmod-usbip-server kmod-usbip-client kmod-sound-soc-ac97 kmod-input-core swap-utils kmod-rt2800-lib kmod-rt2800-usb kmod-rt2x00-lib kmod-rt2x00-usb kmod-usb-uhci kmod-usb2-pci kmod-usb-storage-extras kmod-usb-audio kmod-usb3 kmod-usbmon usbutils libusb-1.0 ll libusb-compat kmod-usb-storage-uas e2fsprogs cfdisk fdisk
dev libs
opkg install automake gcc libusb-1.0 libudev-fbsd
custom building libusb needs work still for had to include my own header. also things seem to be missing from dynamic library.
Once you get these on plug in a usb drive with a ext 3 partition and a swap partition . goto the luci/lede web mount interface and select the drive you just plugged in set it to overlay root, add swap after.
reboot router.
If you had a password set before it should be a new config asking for a new password, is an easy way to check if it worked.
Extras
opkg install libffmpeg-full ffmpeg libogg sox pulseaudio-daemon alsa-utils madplay mpd moc kmod-rtlwifi kmod-rtlwifi-usb kmod-usb-serial-pl2303 r8188eu-firmware
Recovery
the procedure during boot is turn power on with reset WDS button pressed till the 2 circle arrows show then wait 5 seconds then start pressing the reset button again it should fastblink the star on the left that shows you are in failsafe… then telnet or putty into 192.168.1.1 and either “mount_root” and fix problem or type firstboot to reset settings
sample client/server setup for paired wireless routers on 5g.
