[PLUG] Talk Idea (was Re: Linksys E8450 for "cheap")

[Russell Senior]

Getting the case off on these is pretty easy. There are 4 screws
hidden under the labels on the feet, and from memory, two more
internal screws. The labels are made of pretty robust plastic and can
be peeled up without them exploding and pressed back down.
Complicating case modifications is that the case is a shell (the board
comes out on the ethernet port edge and the outer case doesn't come
completely apart). I can imagine some wall mount mods, but so can
anyone else.

The two weaknesses of the E8450 are the lack of a ready wall mounting
and no PoE. Oh, and maybe a third, they wouldn't do well outside. But,
you know, sports cars are great on smooth pavement and not so great on
rutted dirt roads. You can also complain about the lack of 6GHz band
coverage, but ... nothing's perfect. To me, it seems like pretty good
bang for the buck. If you have or can improvise a shelf or other flat
surface, they work pretty good, have fast 802.11ax (wifi 6) radios and
(allegedly) 2.5Gbps ethernet. I'm using one for an indoor AP and (8
feet from the shelf to a couch) I'm getting wireless modulation rates
of >1Gpbs to a modern laptop:

aa:bb:cc:xx:yy:zz  -53 dBm / unknown (SNR -53)  10 ms ago
    RX: 1200.9 MBit/s, HE-MCS 11, 80MHz, HE-NSS 2, HE-GI 0, HE-DCM 0
1767325 Pkts.
    TX: 1134.2 MBit/s, HE-MCS 11, 80MHz, HE-NSS 2, HE-GI 1, HE-DCM 0
4053749 Pkts.

The installation procedure from the vendor firmware is scripted,
replaces the bootloader, gives robust ubi layer block devices for
storage on NAND (with wear leveling and spare blocks).

Hmm. Maybe I should buy some and demonstrate flashing them with
OpenWrt as a PLUG talk and if people are interested they can buy them
from me for my hardware cost on the spot.

Is anyone interested in that?

-- 
Russell Senior
russell at personaltelco.net