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Comment by sexyrouter | Hacker News Reader

After getting my TPlink router bricked and not having soldering skills for Serial UART. I got fed up and built my own router which never gets bricked:

I bought Orange Pi3 (38 USD) from AliExpress.

Orange Pi 3 H6 2GB LPDDR3 8GB EMMC Flash Gigabyte Ethernet Port AP6256 WIFI BT5.0 4*USB3.0 Support Android 7.0, Ubuntu, Debian https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/bfPcZFXS

It has Gigabyte ethernet Port and USB3 capable of delivering 5gbps. (Superspeed Mode)

And I bought 1300mbps WiFi dongle (15 USD) from AliExpress:

CF-WU782AC USB 3.0 1300Mbps Network Card Wireless WiFi Adapter+Dual Antenna High Speed 5Gbps Net card https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/cGawgQRQ

I used this to build a router. Setup Hostapd + dnsmasq

Alternatively run Pihole and your custom iptable rules

I get around 900Mbps (5Ghz AC network) on WiFi to all my rooms.

Build your own router!

Why do you guys still buy overpriced routers? What advantage do you've over my custom built one?

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This is a provocative comment although it begs the question:

Can you easily run OpenWRT on Orange PI 3 immediately after purchase?

If not, I think that could be a factor in why someone might pay more. They might want to leverage the work of OpenWRT developers.

I too recently picked up another pocket-sized SBC with Gigabit Ethernet. Compared to Orange Pi 3 it has two additional Ethernet ports, better antennas (no dongle needed), more TF card storage (128GB vs 64GB), well-tested OpenWRT support and everything to build from scratch is on Github. Like Orange Pi 3 it uses U-boot and one can easily recover from accidental bricking without opening it up.

Also has customer support, automatic updates and an additional GUI which are not things I needed but probably increased the price.

Orange Pi 3 has a GPU, HDMI port and jacks for audio and composite video. Is the buyer intending to "build a custom router" paying for specs she does not need?

What is the estimated power consumption for Orange Pi 3?

What are some examples of "overpriced routers"?

Imagine for the sake of argument we posted specs for various SBC's here without giving the "brand name" and let readers bid on what they would be willing to pay. Assuming readers could not see each others' bids, how widely would the bids vary?

Is each spec worth the same to each buyer? Do all buyers have exactly the same needs?

> I too recently picked up another pocket-sized SBC with Gigabit Ethernet. Compared to Orange Pi 3 it has two additional Ethernet ports, better antennas (no dongle needed), more TF card storage (128GB vs 64GB) and well-tested OpenWRT support.

What is it that you purchased?

I had the same reaction. This was one of the strangest omissions. I was certain there was going to be a neat plot twist at the end...

I like GL.iNet routers: small, inexpensive and come with OpenWRT. I was very happy with my AR300M until it started getting unstable after a few months: need to hard reboot it every couple of days. Not sure if I'm unlucky or if it's inherent to inexpensive routers.

Maybe one of https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_864?dataflt%5BEt....

A couple of reasons. First, up until recently you couldn’t buy good hardware to build your own router, that was cheap and had gigabit or faster Ethernet. Second, support. If something happens to me or I am traveling, I want others to be able to figure out wtf is going on. Third is that I might want more than one AP and I might want to install them in places that are not great for home built looking hardware.

My current setup is a TP-Link router with OpenWRT, and UniFi access points for Wi-Fi. The UniFis are really nice because they are PoE, so I only need to run a single wire to where they are installed.

That’s not to say that what you did was wrong. It’s super cool! Just not a one size fits all solution.

Just to add up, an old and obsolete atom-based netbook is a super powerful platform for OpenWrt that you may already have lying around. If it's not too old and you tweak the BIOS and configure power management, it will draw not too much electricity. x64/x86 OpenWrt targets work great, you just need to be careful with the WiFi hardware regarding driver compatibility. Consult wikidevi.com and OpenWrt wiki. It may even be possible to use an integrated wifi.

If it's not enough, you can try to run OpenWRT inside a VM/LXD container and use a host OS for the greater good. It's lots of fun!

Thanks for the tip on the dongle.

Sounds good, but all these noname Chinese boards literally have no support and no updates. If something serious like KRACK attacks will come - good luck to patch it all.

Wifi over USB? Thanks, nope.

What's wrong with USB WiFi if it has USB3, capable of 5Gbps?

Usb 3 is duplex.

I don't understand the bias against USB either. USB 3 is pretty good for this kind of thing.

It does sound nice, does it handle multiple clients? Not a ton, but most of the day I have around 10 clients connected.

I'd really like to upgrade from my aging RT-N66U

I've tested it with 20 devices, works fine

How did your TPLink get bricked, as a matter of interest?

Installing openwrt got it bricked.

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