I have a Buffalo Tech WYR-54G.  I've opened it and spotted a four-pin jumper labelled J8.  Measuring the voltages I find the following:

====
Board top
             
power in connector

antenna  |  J8:  O        O     O     O      |      LEDS
                       ?    +3.3V    ?     gnd   
Board bottom
====
The 3.3V, gnd assignments are guesses.  Connected to an AD233AK level shifter, they make its led glow.  I don't know how to identify Rx, Tx, how to figure out which they are (assuming they exist.)  The left ? fluctuates roughly 0.1<->0.4V, whereas the right ? is steady at a small voltage less than 0.1V.  (Voltages are wrt gnd, guessed to be pin extreme right.)

Any hardware g0d willing to weigh in?  How DOES one make these assigments using only a DMM?

Of course I could just endlessly connect wires, etc. but I prefer some method to my madness, the latter is just barely controllable as is.

TIA.

For myself, I simply tried it, and one combination worked I suggest trying out the pinout of the WBR2-G54 first (eg. in Your order, TX, RX, VCC, GND). Please post pictures too, if You can.

You can see the FCC pix for the unit's FCC ID: P27IP806SM at:

https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/cf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout=500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=671744&fcc_id='P27IP806SMP'

In the board pix you can see the four-pin pad I mentioned in my post.  What I identify as GND has a slightly squarish shape in the pix, which seems to me with these devices is indeed often a key to the GND connection.  My VCC ID also seems OK, it is just choosing RX, TX as either of the two combos of the remaining pins doesn't seem to work, at least I don't see any output on boot or otherwise in a minicom serial console.

(:

Set minicom's speed to 115200 and _without_ hardware handshake - use none, or software.

If you haven't already done so, you'll need to install stty and setserial.

Thanks:  I've already tried that, as well as many other twiddles to the minicom serial port settings.  The same setup has worked with other routers.

Incidentally, I forgot to mention I've also "attacked" this router by trying to install firmware (openwrt-generic-squashfs.trx) using the router's firmware update web utility and also by the usual command line tftp.  The router's lights blink, but nothing happens, it just silently rejects it (?).  A very weird thing about this router is that with the web update utility you get a msg that it's trying the upgrade, but this never stops, even if you wait a long time. In my experience routers are usually much more positive [or negative!], returning with an error report or some such.

The router is difficult to reverse engineer, there's no firmware image to study, at least none I've been able to find.

Apparently some routers look for their model number in the header. Maybe take a look at one of the stock images with a hex viewer, and if necessary, hack your OpenWRT image.

Unfortunately, Buffalo Tech posts no "stock" firmware images for this router.  If I use as a template the image for the WBR-G54 [which this is NOT] and insert its info ahead of "HDR0" (including editing model, adjusting the file size, etc.), this also mysteriously fails.

Looking at the Hardware notes: http://openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs

I don't see any mention of the WYR-G54. Are you sure OpenWRT can even run on this platform?

It's possible the serial pinouts are similiar to:
http://openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs/Hardware … o/WBR2-G54

If you're using a digital multimeter, it should be easy to identify VCC & GND using the ohmeter (use the lowest range - not advisable to do this with an analogue as you might blow something up).

That leaves just TX & RX - maybe try pot luck & if it doesn't work, swap them over.

(Last edited by frogzoo on 20 May 2005, 04:13)

Hi,

There seems to be a firmware available, only not from the usual places. Have a look at this thread in the buffalo forum over at DSL reports:
http://www2.dslreports.com/forum/remark,13072740

I have found that the 3.3V shown by the DMM on one pin (see above "diagram") drops to an unusable level because of loading  (I guess), after connecting a AD233AK level shifter's power inputs.  My next step should be to just use a battery to power the level shifter, but I haven't gotten to that yet.

I found that firmware image on the sercomm.com site some time ago, but haven't had any luck reverse engineering it.

All in all a frustrating router, this.

Any progress on this?

Anyone still looking at this router?  It is the cheapest 802.11g router available here in the UK, by a significant amount.

Buffalo have firmware images available on their website, and an offer to distribute the GPL sources for their routers.  You can get the firmware here:

http://www.buffalo-technology.com/support/downloads.php

But they make getting the GPL sources as difficult as they can while remaining barely within the letter of the license.  The offer is as follows:

20 Euros is more than half the cost of the device itself, and the 'order confirmation' line is there to allow them to delay 6 months in sending your CD-R back.

(Last edited by akadruid on 20 Apr 2006, 14:56)