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* Vitals [1]
* Official Details [2]
* Pictures [3]
* ASUS Firmware [4]
* Alternate Linux Based Firmware [5]
* Support Forum [6]
* Misc Notes & Links [7]
* Serial port [8]
* Discussion [9]
VITALS
* MANUFACTURER : Asus
* MODEL : WL500G
* TYPE : Access Point / Router
* EXTERNAL ANTENNA JACK : 1x RP-SMA
* USB PORTS : 1x v1.1 on wl500g
* PARALLEL PORT : 1x on wl500g
* WLAN CHIPSET : Broadcom (mini pci)
* POWER : 5v
* TRANSMIT SPECS :
* 19mW default
* 84mW max
* RECIEVE SENSITIVITY :
* -84dB @ 11Mbps
* AVAILABLE NEW : Yes
* AVERAGE PRICE : $150
* VITALS LAST UPDATED : 6/08/05
OFFICIAL DETAILS
From the Manufacturers blurb [10]...
The Most Smart WLAN Router in the world
ASUS proudly announce the smartest WLAN Router in the world, WL-500g.
It provides fast 54 Mbps date rate and all WLAN Router function,
including DHCP server, IP sharing, Firewall, VPN pass through, esc. To
ensure WLAN security, it also provides strong WPA and unique WLAN
firewall, to protect the data from WLAN.
The Asus WL500G Broadband Router is really FIVE devices in one box.
* First, there's the Wireless Access Point, which lets you connect
Wireless-G or Wireless-B devices to the network.
* There's also a built-in 4-port full-duplex 10/100 Switch to
connect your wired-Ethernet devices. Connect four PCs directly, or
daisy-chain out to more hubs and switches to create as big a network
as you need.
* The Router function ties it all together and lets your whole
network share a high-speed cable or DSL Internet connection, files,
and other resources such as printers and hard disk storage space.
* It also has ability to be a print server or control device via the
printer port
* Finally, USB Storage support for USB key's / Harddisks OR a USB
Webcam, the storage support is even included on OpenWrt [11] with
webcam support on the horizon.
PICTURES
Lots of internal WL500G Pics [12]
ASUS FIRMWARE
Select your Model [13]
ALTERNATE LINUX BASED FIRMWARE
OPENWRT Support for wl500g [14] For WL500G - OpenWRT [15] provides an
flexible, re-writable Linux distribution for the WL500G, this one
includes madwifi to support the altheros a/b/g mini-pci chipsets and
others.
SUPPORT FORUM
WL500 Forum [16]
MISC NOTES & LINKS
wl500 Setup / Testing [17]
SERIAL PORT
There seems to be standard dual Uart's for possible dual serial
support on this board.
Here is a tutorial on how to add dual serial ports to this device:
Serial Port Tutorial [18]
This describes how to build an expansion board to add UARTs and a
MAX232 chip to the WL500g. I assume that UARTs are specified because
that particular hardware revision of the WL500g does not have UARTs on
board. Can we get confirmation on which wl500g/gx's have UARTs on
them?
If all this gets too hard, you could always plug in a USB-Serial
adapter and compile in support for that instead.
USB-Serial Tutorial [19]
DISCUSSION
17/7/05 Peter melb_ap [20] : Standard openwrt for the broadcom
chipset will run on this device, but there are also versions
specifically compiled to take advantage of the mini-pci slot thats
standard in the wl500g unit.
I've done some testing and found that the altheros a/b/g cards do
work , but watch the revisions - refer for supported cards [21]
This is a great little unit, for not much more than a WRT54G [22] you
get the big plus of being able to change the mini-pci radio for one
with a high receive sensitivity or 802.11a support. You can also even
add a memory key or hard disk storage, use the usb or printer port for
control or content purposes, and do the normal routing / web
functions.
I've been evaluating this unit and it could be another option for the
node in a box project where the uplink is a bit more difficult or
requires 802.11a
19/7/05 DanFlett [23] : I've recently bought 2 of these for myself.
I'm using one as my Internet router using modified firmware from
wl500g.info [24]. I'm using their firmware version 1.7.5.9-5 which has
the BPALogin software compiled in to allow use on Telstra Bigpond
Cable. It seems to work fine for me. It doesn't show me what IP
address I've received from Bigpond via DHCP in the web interface - but
you can telnet in and do an 'ifconfig'.
I intend to install OpenWRT [25] on the other one and have a play -
I'd like to compile in support for USB WLAN NICs so that extra radios
can easily added via USB.
6/8/05 DanFlett [26] : Just an update to say that I've installed
OpenWRT [27] WhiteRussian [28] RC2 one of my WL500g units and it works
very well. I've managed to mount a USB memory key and a 60GB hard
drive (not at the same time - I don't have a USB hub yet). For some
reason OpenWRT [29] only reports 2.2MB of flash space onboard so it's
getting cramped already. I'm going to investigate running a root
filesystem off external flash memory once I'm sure I can easily "dual
boot" OpenWRT [30] - from either the internal flash or off an external
flash. Once I've done that I'll install Samba on the external memory
and share files off the 60Gb HDD. I'm also going to experiment with
using a USB-Serial adaptor and a USB dial-up modem.
I followed this _HowTo [31] - with the important difference is that
my WL500g has an OHCI usb controller, not UHCI - so I added the
usb-ohci_ module, not the _uhci_ module.
27/7/05 John Batstone, Node FOA, FOB, FOC: I have been playing with
one of these little gems for the last couple of days and finding it a
great unit.
I have flashed it with 1.9.2.7-6b firmware from the
http://oleg.wl500g.info/ site (it still uses the ASUS web page
interface with some added goodies). There is a nice little "howto" at
www.macsat.com/ipkg.php [32] on how to setup a 256Meg USB stick or
external USB drive and make it mount on bootup and install ipkg
package system. I have even got midnite commander working on this for
ease of use. So far the unit has been working great,
and as Peter says, the Mitsubishi R100 is the same unit as the
WL-500G, the cost of the Mitsubishi's are around the $110+ mark
6/8/05 - DanFlett [33] : Wow John, where can you get them for $110?
The cheapest I've seen the R100 is for about $125 on ausprices.com.au.
28/7/05 dna If you follow the "how to" John mentions above it's
probably a good idea to skip making a swap partition on a flash drive.
These embeded Linux versions don't need swap to run and it will
probably destroy the flash drive very quickly. Linux allocates memory
as much as possible, so the swap will be utilized. The Flash chip
technology needs to do an erase before each write so everytime a page
is swapped it will identify the sector, decide what needs to be kept,
copy that data elsewhere, erase the sector then copy the data back.
Flash drives have a finite erase/write life and are not really
suitable for this type of use.
30/7/05 Peter melb_ap [34] I just tested to see if this unit can work
with a usb hub and yes it can. I used a powered usb hub in this test,
but managed to run a webcam and memory key at the same time just with
the standard firmware.
This means that the only real limit to what this unit can run will be
memory although you could swap that to say a disposable 128Mb key.
What do you think dna?
30/7/05 dna Yeah, go for it! It would be interesting to see how long
it did work for. May be a little slow paging in and out but probably
OK for this sort of use.
2/9/05 Peter melb_ap [35] Ok I have made some further progress in
using these units with 802.11A
I setup a test link over 400Mtrs with an average LOS (ie lots of
trees) using a cm9 mini pci card in the wl500g at each end using 18Db
rojone panels. One Unit was in master mode (AP) and the other in
managed mode (client). The OS was openwrt RC2 available at this link
[36].
Signal on the client end was reporting -71 although i'm not sure how
accurate that is, and i locked the rate at 24M to stop the constant
rate changing.
Once this was done I achieved a pretty constant 800Kbytes per sec,
more testing to follow.
Links:
------
[1] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#vitals
[2] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#official_details
[3] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#pictures
[4] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#asus_firmware
[5] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#alternate_linux_based_firmware
[6] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#support_forum
[7] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#misc_notes___links
[8] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#serial_port_
[9] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#discussion_
[10] http://au.asus.com/products2.aspx?l1=12&l2=43
[11] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?OpenWrt
[12] http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=8
[13] http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us
[14] http://openwrt.org/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=9538#p9538
[15] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?OpenWRT
[16] http://wl500g.info/
[17] http://mobil.kunstlabor.at/openwrt/wl500gd/
[18] http://wl500g.info/archive/index.php/t-587.html
[19] http://wl500g.info/archive/index.php/t-608.html
[20] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?melb_ap
[21] http://www.madwifi.org/
[22] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?WRT54G
[23] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?DanFlett
[24] http://wl500g.info/
[25] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?OpenWRT
[26] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?DanFlett
[27] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?OpenWRT
[28] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?WhiteRussian
[29] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?OpenWRT
[30] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?OpenWRT
[31] http://wiki.openwrt.org/UsbStorageHowto
[32] http://www.macsat.com/ipkg.php
[33] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?DanFlett
[34] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?melb_ap
[35] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?melb_ap
[36]
http://wifi.ozo.com/airo/asus/firmware/hostap/latest/whiterussian-RC2/
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