MT7628 Ultra-Low Cost Router

In introduction,
this project, based on the EBITA E103-W20 MT7628 module, implements an ultra-low-cost router. The MT7628 is a high-performance router chip with a long history and abundant documentation. It can be used as an introductory chip for learning OpenWRT, or as an IoT gateway to enable device-to-cloud connectivity.
Reference Project
: Thanks to the project of the expert: https://oshwhub.com/toolchen/mini-router
Update Log:
2023-11-19 First Release
2023-11-22 Added 5.10 kernel firmware, enhanced WIFI stability, recommended update.
Basic Features:

Five 10M/100M Ethernet ports, internal integrated switch (one defaults to WAN port, four defaults to WAN port),
2.4G Wifi, 2T2R
580MHz MIPS core processor,
USB 5V power supply
, USB 2.0 interface, can be used for external network port or USB storage,
32MB Flash,
128M DDR2 RAM
, two TTL serial ports, one for Linux log printing,
one I2C interface.

Chip

Solution: Main Chip Module: E103-W20 MT7628 module,
SY8089A1AAC 5V TO 3V3 DCDC
, SY6280 USB 2A current limiting protection chip,
HR911105A. This document describes the flashing of MTK Breed firmware using the built-in network adapter and

OpenWRT firmware. Since the module's built-in U-Boot is difficult to use and lacks progress tracking, we opted for the U-Boot developed by a skilled flashing developer. Before flashing, you need to enter the built-in U-Boot. The flashing process is as follows: First, connect the device's LAN port to the network cable and the other end to the computer, ensuring a stable connection. Then, modify the network port address to match the U-Boot update address (see image below). After setting this up, press and hold the PERST_N button, connect the device to USB power, and wait a few seconds until U-Boot boots. Open a browser and access 192.168.1.111. Normally, you should see the built-in U -Boot update interface. As shown in the image above, select the Breed firmware (breed-mt7688-reset38.bin is provided in the attachment), and then click "Update U-Boot." Wait for the update to complete, as shown in the image below. After flashing, the system will automatically restart. Since there is no progress display, it is recommended to wait a few more seconds to prevent corrupting U-Boot! After entering the Unbreakable Uboot interface and modifying the options, wait for the flashing process to complete. Then, disconnect the board's power, change the network port IP address to automatic acquisition, and press and hold the PERST_N button (the same button as before) while connecting the board to the power supply. If Uboot boots successfully, the network port LED will flash a few times, and an Ethernet IP address will be assigned. Enter 192.168.1.1 in your browser to access the Unbreakable Uboot interface. The interface parameters should display correctly (optional). Click "Firmware Backup" to back up the current system partition (the system partition contains the original EEPROM, which is not accessible to ordinary users; it is only available during manufacturer development and flashed at the factory). If the firmware is corrupted later, a programmer will be needed to recover the bricked board. Click "Firmware Update" to flash the new OpenWRT firmware, as shown in the image (the test firmware in the attachment can be used). The update process is shown in the image below. After the update is complete, the system will automatically restart. If using the test firmware, the system will be able to find a Wi-Fi hotspot named "OpenWRT" after startup. Connect to it and enter the password to access the background test firmware. The firmware is based on the latest LEDE source code and includes basic plugins and Flow Offloading to improve forwarding efficiency, making it suitable for basic use. Setting up the basic development environment for OpenWRT firmware : This article will use WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) to develop and compile OpenWRT firmware. WSL needs to be enabled first (refer to Baidu for details). After enabling it, download Ubuntu 20 from the app store. After downloading, start the system and complete the initial password and other configurations. Disabling Windows Path: Including this configuration in the Windows path will cause the source code compilation to fail. You need to disable it. Edit `/etc/wsl.conf` and add the following content: ` [interop] appendWindowsPath = false`. Then, enter `wsl --shutdown` in the Windows terminal to restart the WSL environment. After restarting, enter the following commands to install the basic compilation environment: `sudo apt update -y` `sudo apt full-upgrade -y` `sudo apt install -y` The output will include the following programs: `ack antlr3 asciidoc autoconf automake autopoint binutils bison build-essential bzip2 ccache cmake cpio curl device-tree-compiler fastjar flex gawk gettext gcc-multilib g++-multilib git gperf haveged help2man intltool libc6-dev-i386 libelf-dev libglib2.0-dev libgmp3-dev libltdl-dev libmpc-dev libmpfr-dev libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev libreadline-dev libssl-dev libtool lrzsz mkisofs msmtp nano ninja-build p7zip p7zip-full patch pkgconf python2.7 python3 python3-pyelftools libpython3-dev` Download the source code for qemu-utils, rsync, scons, squashfs-tools, subversion, swig, texinfo, uglifyjs, upx-ucl, unzip, vim, wget, xmlto, xxd, zlib1g-dev, and python3-setuptools.




























Since the official OpenWRT MT7628 WIFI uses an open-source driver, it cannot unlock higher power. Also, the latest official version does not support the 5.4 kernel, which causes frequent WIFI disconnections. Therefore, we chose the lede source code from lean. This project is basically compatible with OpenWRT and can completely replace development.
Source code GitHub address: https://github.com/coolsnowwolf/lede
Enter the following commands to download the lede repository and the accompanying libraries, then enter the configuration interface:
git clone https://github.com/coolsnowwolf/ledecd lede ./scripts/feeds update -a ./scripts/feeds install -amake menuconfig
Select the target to develop
Refer to the image below
Luci plugin configuration
Luci is used to configure OpenWRT related information on the webpage. A series of plugins provided by lede are also provided in the form of webpages. We can enable the required plugins, as shown in the image below:
Applications enabled in the test firmware
  luci-app-arpbind............................................. ARP Binding luci-app-autoreboot.................... LuCI support for Scheduled Reboot luci-app-filetransfer........................... LuCI page for IPK upload -*- luci-app-firewall................ Firewall and Portforwarding application luci-app-ttyd...................................... LuCI support for ttyd luci-app-turboacc............ LuCI support for Flow Offload / Shortcut-FE[*] Include Flow Offload[*] Include BBR CCA[*] Include Pdnsd luci-app-upnp................. Universal Plug & Play configuration module luci-app-vnstat.................................. LuCI Support for VnStat
Kernel module configuration
: Select Kernel modules on the first screen to enter the kernel module configuration interface.
USB storage device configuration:
Block Devices --->
-*- kmod-scsi-core....................................... SCSI device support
Filesystems --->
kmod-fs-ext4..................................... EXT4 filesystem support
kmod-fs-ntfs3.......... NTFS filesystem read & write (new driver) support
kmod-fs-vfat..................................... VFAT filesystem support
USB Support --->
kmod-usb2................................... Support for USB2 controllers
-*- kmod-usb-storage..................................... USB Storage support kmod-usb-storage-extras.................... Extra drivers for usb-storage kmod-usb-storage-uas.................... USB Attached SCSI (UASP) support
Enable USB network adapter
USB Support --->
-*- kmod-usb-net............... Kernel modules for USB-to-Ethernet convertors
kmod-usb-net-asix...... Kernel module for USB-to-Ethernet Asix convertors kmod-usb-net-asix-ax88179
kmod-usb-net-rndis......................... Support for RNDIS connections
OCHI
USB Support --->
kmod-usb-ohci............................... Support for OHCI controllers
Button
Input modules --->
kmod-input-gpio-keys.................................... GPIO key support
Configuration of related tools
Utilities --->
usbutils................................... USB devices listing utilities
Network --->
iperf3........................ Internet Protocol bandwidth measuring tool
Kernel version configuration
Downgrade kernel to 5.4
Edit `target/linux/ramips/Makefile`
and configure the following two options to 5.4, referring to the following content:
`KERNEL_PATCHVER:=5.4` `KERNEL_TESTING_PATCHVER:=5.4` For
device tree configuration
, we can configure IO mapping according to requirements based on the original configuration. The relevant nodes can be referenced in the `mt7628an.dtsi` file. We need to modify `mt7628an_hilink_hlk-7628n.dts` (it is recommended to use the file in the attachment), located in `lede argetlinux
amipsdts`. You can refer to the modified file below:
// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later OR MIT
 
#include "mt7628an.dtsi"
 
#include
#include
 
/ {
compatible = "hilink,hlk-7628n", "mediatek,mt7628an-soc";
model = "HILINK HLK-7628N";
 
keys {
compatible = "gpio-keys";
 
reset {
label = "reset";
gpios = ;
linux,code = ;
};
};
 
leds {
compatible = "gpio-leds";
 
wlan {
label = "green:wlan";
gpios = ;
};
led1 {
label = "led1";
gpios = ;
};
led2 {
label = "led2";
gpios = ;
};
led3 {
label = &
i2c
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
 
​
​
​
​
​
​
 
​{
status = "okay";
};
 
&i2s {
status = "okay";
};
 
&gdma {
status = "okay";
};
 
&uart1 {
status = "okay";
};
 
&spi0 {
status = "okay";
 
pinctrl-names = "default";
pinctrl-0 = , ;
 
flash@0 {
compatible = "jedec,spi-nor";
reg = ;
spi-max-frequency = ;
broken-flash-reset;
 
partitions {
compatible = "fixed-partitions";
#address-cells = ;
#size-cells = ;
 
partition@0 {
label = "u-boot";
reg = ;
read-only;
};
 
partition@30000 {
label = "u-boot-env";
reg = ;
read-only;
};
 
factory: partition@40000 {
label = "factory";
reg = ;
read-only;
};
 
partition@50000 {
compatible = "denx,uimage";
label = "firmware";
reg = ;
}; }
;
};
};
 
ðernet {
mtd-mac-address = ;
};
 
&wmac {
status = "okay";
};
To compile
, enter the following commands to start compiling:
make download -j8 make V=s -j16
The compiled files are stored in targets
amipsmt76x8, and the file ending with sysupgrade.bin is the file to be burned.
Showing pictures