4G Systems MTX-1 MeshCube / AccessCube

meshcube_klar_freigestellt.jpg

The “MeshCube” (MTX-1) was one of the first extensible Wireless hardware built with “mesh routing” and community support in mind. “AccessCube” was the commercial marketing term for exactly the same hardware. Later a “singleboard” variant was sold by T-Systems as “Internet Box”. Allthough the HW is not produced any more, a few “cubes” keep running in community networks, especially Berlin. Supported since OpenWrt Kamikaze under the OpenWrt target au1000 https://dev.openwrt.org/wiki/au1000

Version/Model Launch Date Model Specific Notes
4G Systems MeshCube / AccessCube (mtx-1) 2004-12 -
T-Mobile Internet Box (TMD SB1-S) 2006 rebranded, single board, single MiniPCI
SoC Ram Flash Network USB Serial JTag
RMI/AMD AU1500 64MiB 32MiB 1 Yes Yes Yes

One of the outstanding features of the MeshCube is the support of up to eight (8) MiniPCI (WLAN) cards. By default it comes with two MiniPCI slots.

Instruction set MIPS
Vendor 4G Systeme
bootloader YAMON
System-On-Chip RMI/AMD Alchemy Au1500 V0.2
CPU @Frq MIPS32 @400MHz
Flash size 32 MiB
Flash Chip AMD Am29LV128M
RAM size 64 MiB
RAM Chip Samsung K4S561632C
Wireless No1 MiniPCI (Atheros AR5213A)
Wireless No2 MiniPCI (Atheros AR5213A)
switch none
Modem none
USB Yes 1 x 1.1 Host + device
Serial Yes
JTAG Yes

See generic.flashing.tftp.

We need a TFTP Server on a PC. On the MeshCube you connect the Serial port, and enter YAMON bootloader. First we need to erase the flash:

YAMON> setenv ipaddr FREE_IP.IN.YOUR.NET
YAMON> setenv bootserver IP.OF.YOUR.TFTP_SERVER
YAMON> erase 0xbfd00000 0xf0000
YAMON> erase -s

Then we can load the kernel and filesystem:

load /openwrt-au1000-au1500-vmlinux-flash.srec
load /openwrt-au1000-au1500-jffs2-128k.srec

The MeshCube has a Serial and JTAG connector at the front, just above the power plug. See → port.serial and → port.jtag for general information about the JTAG/serial port, cables, etc.

The following serial port settings are used:

bps 115200
data bits 8
parity None
stop bits 1
HW flow control no
SW flow control no

The Serial/JTAG Port has the following pin-out, as seen from the front:

02 04 06 08 10 12
01 03 05 07 09 11

The pins are assigned like this:

01 TXD (3.3v) Serial
02 RXD (3.3v) Serial
03 VCC (3.3v)
04 TCK EJTAG
05 RST# EJTAG
06 TMS EJTAG
07 DINT EJTAG
08 TDO EJTAG
09 GND
10 TDI EJTAG
11 GND
12 TRST EJTAG

The “T-Mobile Internet Box” has a 24 pin connector between the Ethernet port and the MiniPCI card and above the 4G Logo with the following pinout, as seen with the 4G logo readable:

1: GND 2: EJTAG TRST
3: EJTAG TDI 4: EJTAG TDO
5: EJTAG TMS 6: EJTAG TCK
7: EJTAG DINT 8: EJTAG RST#
9: UART0 TXD 10: UART0 RXD
11: I2C SDA 12: 5V
13: 3.3V 14: I2C SCL
15: UART3 TXD 16: GPIO209
17: GPIO208 18: UART3 RXD
19: GPIO206 20: GPIO205
21: GPIO15 22: GPIO08
23: GPIO07 24: GND
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  • Last modified: 2021/01/13 10:19
  • by danitool