» Accessing serial console on the Fon : SoDoItYourself.com
Back to SoDoItYourself.com
MAX232 Serial level converter »

Accessing serial console on the Fon
1 Votes | Average: 5 out of 51 Votes | Average: 5 out of 51 Votes | Average: 5 out of 51 Votes | Average: 5 out of 51 Votes | Average: 5 out of 5
Loading ... Loading ...

Foneros serial console

Out of the box the foneros wireless router has Telnet and SSH turned off. By accessing the buit in serial console you can turn SSH on and access various settings and reflash the firmware.

 

Read on and you’ll find out how.

 

See Inside the foneros for how to dissassemble your router. You will need to find the serial console. See the image below:

Fon serial console

 

Serial connector

In order to connect it to your PC we need to convert the +3.3 volts from the Vcc of the router to the levels of your PC serial port wich operates at -12 to +12 volts.

 

For this you can use any kind of TTL to RS232 level shifter. These can be bought as kits or made from for example a phone data cable. Using a MAX 232 you can wire it up like this:

Fon serial connection circuit

 

Using a dremel or a knife we need to cut out a hole for the Serial connector:

DSC_0004.JPG

Draw along the connector to mark out where to cut:

DSC_0003.JPG

If you use a dremel, use a low rpm so that the plastic don’t melt.

The finished cutout for the DB9 connector:

DSC_0008.JPG

 

All done! Ain’t it beatuiful?

DSC_0009S.JPG

To access it you can use any terminal application. HyperTerminal ships with windows and it will do fine.Connect your fon to Com1 and Start hyperterminal from:

Start->Programs->Accessories->Communications->HyperTerminal.

You will need to set up communication settings to

9600-8-N-1 and no flow control:

comsettings.JPG

And here you have it:

connected.JPG

This entry was posted on Friday, February 9th, 2007 at 2:10 am and is filed under Electronics, Computers, Hacking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Add 'Accessing serial console on the Fon' to Del.icio.us Add 'Accessing serial console on the Fon' to digg Add 'Accessing serial console on the Fon' to FURL Add 'Accessing serial console on the Fon' to blinklist Add 'Accessing serial console on the Fon' to My-Tuts Add 'Accessing serial console on the Fon' to reddit Add 'Accessing serial console on the Fon' to Feed Me Links! Add 'Accessing serial console on the Fon' to Technorati Add 'Accessing serial console on the Fon' to Socializer 

27 comments to “Accessing serial console on the Fon”

  1. Comment by Alex Hirzel:
    Saturday, February 10th 2007 at 11:34 pm

    This is an insanely clever idea, certainly more so than I could’ve come up with myself.

    Thanks!

  2. Comment by Cory:
    Wednesday, February 14th 2007 at 1:37 am

    In the drawing on how to wire up the MAX 232, it lists capacitors C1-C5 . Which capacitors should we use?

  3. Comment by Jimbo:
    Wednesday, February 14th 2007 at 7:03 pm

    Can you provide a link to where I could purchase the TTL to RS232 level shifter (or even a picture for that matter)?

    Regardless, this looks awesome, I can’t wait till I get my fon router and I can open it up.

    - Jim

  4. Comment by Dustin:
    Thursday, February 15th 2007 at 3:54 am

    Can you provide a link to where I could purchase the TTL to RS232 level shifter (or even a picture for that matter)?

    Regardless, this looks awesome, I can’t wait till I get my fon router and I can open it up.

    - Jim

    Also requesting this!

  5. Comment by Alex Hirzel:
    Thursday, February 15th 2007 at 11:11 pm

    http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/max232.html

    For the posts above, I just received a shipment of sample MAX232IN chips today, will be breadboarding soon. TI sends these to you for free (including shipping) for sampling purposes.

  6. Comment by Dago:
    Monday, February 19th 2007 at 7:47 pm

    I just tried this and got it kinda working. I see the stuff la fonera outputs at startup but it seems it doesnt respond to my commands in anyway. For example at startup it says something like “Executing boot script in 1 seconds, press ^C to cancel” and if I try to press ctrl + c it doesnt affect anything. Then it says “Press enter to activate this console” but it does not do anything if I press enter, la fonera just continues to boot like normal. Any ideas? I’ve checked my connections and they should be fine.

  7. Comment by Mike:
    Tuesday, February 20th 2007 at 4:40 am

    @Dago

    Make sure your Tx wire on the PC is wired correctly to your fonera.

    What kind of TTL->RS232 level converting are you using?

  8. Comment by Universal Pattern:
    Thursday, February 22nd 2007 at 5:06 pm

    I got mine for free before christmas. I would like to see a wrietup on the level converter as this part sems a bit fuzzy!

    Cheers m8.

  9. Comment by Cory:
    Thursday, February 22nd 2007 at 11:55 pm

    This site was really helpful in the details:
    http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=es_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.art-xtreme.com%2fblog%2f20061017%2factivar-ssh-en-la-fonera%2f

    BTW all caps are 1uF except the one linking power to ground which is 10uF

  10. Comment by Andrew:
    Monday, February 26th 2007 at 6:35 pm

    How many volts are the capacitors? I bought 50 and 100 volt caps, and I tried to get some lower but the lowest I could get is 16 volt. Please help! Thanks!

  11. Comment by Jimbo:
    Friday, March 2nd 2007 at 7:19 pm

    Hey everyone,

    I just finished my soldering job… it looks correct, but I’m not getting anything intelligible in hypertrm. Instead I’m getting seemingly random special characters - black boxes, ~ equal signs, beta symbols… but no fon.

    Any suggestions?

    - Jimbo

  12. Comment by Jimbo:
    Friday, March 2nd 2007 at 7:21 pm

    Actually, now that I messed around with it… the symbols appear to be font related. As I type, new characters appear, but no matter what fonts I try, still nothing legible.

    - Jimbo

  13. Comment by Greg:
    Wednesday, March 14th 2007 at 10:13 pm

    Hey so is the only hardware i need for this the la fonera and the max 232? what kind of wires are needed? also are the wires included with the max 232?
    Thanks
    -Greg

  14. Comment by Dave:
    Thursday, March 15th 2007 at 10:03 pm

    @greg

    You either need a max232 with capacitors

    Or

    A phone data cable. You need to find out wich leads are Rx or Tx in it.

    Or

    Any serial peripheral communicating through RS232 on the PC side and some sort of TTL logic device on the other side.

  15. Comment by » Reflashing la fonera with dd-wrt : SoDoItYourself.com:
    Thursday, March 15th 2007 at 11:29 pm

    […] Be sure to read Accessing Serial console and Dissassembling the la fonera first. […]

  16. Comment by Jimbo:
    Friday, March 16th 2007 at 5:22 pm

    I’m working on getting some photos up of what I’ve done with my fon for reference.

    Also, any idea if this works on *all* hardware versions/firmware versions?

    -= Jim =-

  17. Comment by Jimbo:
    Tuesday, March 20th 2007 at 1:04 am

    I realized my problem was from a bad driver for my USB–>COM adapter. A direct connection from router to my laptop and all is well.

    -= Jim =-

  18. Comment by Hacking Fonera - How to install dd-wrt onto fonera « liltux:
    Wednesday, March 21st 2007 at 2:46 am

    […] 7. http://sodoityourself.com […]

  19. Comment by Joe:
    Wednesday, March 28th 2007 at 3:19 am

    I am trying this but with a USB TTL adapter and I’m having an issue with the connection.

    I can see by the led that it is sending data but I don’t get anything, just a blank screen.

    Any ideas please contact me on my site, www.cyberzerocool.com

    Thanks,
    CyberZeroCool

  20. Comment by Cam:
    Sunday, April 29th 2007 at 12:51 am

    Thanks a bunch for the guide. I ended up using a spare USB cable I had laying around. The plug end fit perfect on the 10 pin connector in the Fonera. On the other end of the cable, I ended up pulling the USB plug apart and put the DB9 connector in it’s place. Then I just “spliced” in a DS275. Pretty darn slick. :)

    Thanks again!

  21. Comment by Originalare:
    Sunday, April 29th 2007 at 8:07 pm

    @CAM

    I used a old IDE flat cable. Just got to cut it down a little. But your solution is much nicer.

  22. Comment by john:
    Wednesday, May 9th 2007 at 5:51 pm

    I tried this on a bricked FON and I get nothing. I used the max232 and followed the directions shown here. It appears that this will only work on a new router.

  23. Comment by Yako:
    Saturday, June 16th 2007 at 8:02 pm

    I tried this using a MAX202, but all I’m getting is weird characters like boxes and tildes. It looks like it is using the wrong ascii table or sth.

  24. Comment by Darkcobra:
    Friday, July 27th 2007 at 3:12 am

    Nice tutorial, and very clean installation.

    But you’ve made a mistake. The MAX232 requires 5.0v to run. Since it’s powered from the Fon, it’s only receiving 3.3v - and that’s not enough! While I suppose it’s possible it *might* just run anyway, I wouldn’t recommend it or call it reliable.

    The proper chip is the MAX3232, which is designed to work from 3.0-5.5v. I used the schematic in the manufacturer’s datasheet. I don’t think your schematic will work for this chip, but I did use it to locate the correct pins on the Fon and the DB9 connectors. In 15 minutes I had it up and running perfectly.

    I got my MAX3232 from www.sparkfun.com, but you can locate plenty of vendors for this (or any) chip using an electronics search engine, like www.findchips.com.

    Happy hacking!

  25. Comment by rui:
    Thursday, August 9th 2007 at 9:52 pm

    Where can i find a serial cable to connect from the router to the pc? I know is a db9 male / female cable but i can’t find it anywhere!

    PS: great job on the router, mine is equal ;P

  26. Comment by John:
    Monday, February 18th 2008 at 7:51 pm

    AWSOME! EVERTHING WORKED GREAT! YOUR THE BEST! KEEP UP THE “TOP SHELF” HACKING!!!

  27. Comment by Router:
    Tuesday, May 20th 2008 at 6:02 pm

    Router…

    The next layer is to prevent viruses from even entering your network. This can be done with a firewall solution that offers a complete Unified Threat Management system. Firewall solutions that offer UTM provide the small business network with a gateway…

Leave a Reply