Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:41 Post subject: Senao Ralink based routers and their ODM/OEM vendors
Senaos line of RaLink based routers are sold as Engenius/Senao but are also rebranded (ODM and OEM) for a whole bunch of other vendors and they are:
Amper (Spain, only 1 router)
Corega (Japan)
Encore (US and Mexico)
Hamlet (Italy)
NetComm (Australia)
MSI (only 1 router)
Rosewill (US)
Sitecom (Europe)
Zyxel (only 1 router)
Hardware:
Looking at Senaos circuit boards one can see that they are of high quality build and Senao has created
a smart layout where they can use an RT3050 or a RT3052 SOC on the same type of circuit board.
There is usually place for 2 DRAM's and a 16MB router is either populated with 2 8MB chips or a single 16MB chip.
Routers with a single 16MB chip can easily be upgraded to 32MB and Senao obviously gives their ODM/OEM vendors a choice of memory configuration.
I have compiled a list of all these routers from Engenius and the ODM/OEM vendors by collecting information from FCC photos, photos from dd-wrt threads and photos from elsewhere on the net.
I have also downloaded GPL code and stock firmware when it has been available together with vendors specifications.
Software:
The header of the stock firmware tells us in the first 16 bytes which Senao basic model a router is based on:
byte 11 is the board identifier and the table below does probably contain a few errors,
the sources I have used has sometimes been quite contradictory.
Any feedback on errors is much appreciated!
I have updated entries in the Supported Devices wiki page for Sitecom, Rosewill, Corega, NetComm.
MSI, and Encore and have referenced them to their corresponding Engenius router.
Last edited by LOM on Wed Feb 27, 2013 14:30; edited 1 time in total
* it looks almost exactly the same as the Senao model.
* apart from the plastic it is the same: the LEDs are in the same place/order/spacing, the ports are in the same position and coloured the same
* the chipset matches, both CPU and radio
If I pop it open and have a look inside, will there be anything that gives it away?
EDIT: Popped it open. The PCB has no id marks on it, however there is space for two memory chips, only one is taken. There also blanks for another TX/RX. (I assume that Senao make one board for 2050/2051/2052).
All I'm really after is the addition of FATX Mass Storage and Samba. Otherwise it's 3G modem support is excellent.
Tempted to just give the ESR6650 r15962 build a go!
Here a cross reference list between the different routers, it is based on the board identifier in the stock firmwares.
The board identifier has for some router versions been extended to 2 bytes but it looks like the last byte still denotes the board type, the extra byte may be used for indicating a slight hardware change like memory configuaration or antenna configuration.
(See A0 11 versus 00 11 )
