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 |
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 |