As someone who has been in charge of not only managing equipment, but specifications, and design- it’s just good sense to not always go for the cheapest product. Sometimes it works well, and sometimes it doesn’t even make it to the point of depreciation to make it a worthwhile venture. This is pretty well known- the axiom “measure twice, cut once” by doing appropriate research before purchase works quite well, but when it comes time to replace that hardware- how many times have you considered a new purpose for a device after replacement? It may still have a function to fill.

This picture above is a small project I’ve been meaning to undertake – adding a portable Ethernet/wireless repeater for use downstairs. This router was replaced recently with a smaller, feature rich unit by GL.iNet, so other than keeping it as a backup, I didn’t really have much use for it.. or did I?

It was running Advanced Tomato firmware, which worked great, but just wasn’t what I needed as it’s repeating capabilities just aren’t quite there- it’ll bridge, and it’s a decent AP, but that’s where it ends.

Having read of people bricking units, I decided to open it ahead of time, connecting a JTAG (USB to Serial) adapter so I had console access should things go wrong.

I had the unit erase the NVRAM, resetting to defaults, then rebooted, stopped it before chaining to the OS, started it as a TFTP server, and uploaded the latest DD-WRT firmware.

Now, I have nearly 100% signal strength downstairs, and a handy place to plug in wired devices if necessary. Total cost: about an hour of time, while still learning how to reuse equipment that can (barely) still be depreciated.