The Devolo dLAN USB Extender is based on the Moschip MCS8140 SoC, runs Linux and serves USB devices over the Power Line interface.

The dLAN USB Extender device is fully supported thanks to a contract work with Devolo AG. Support for this device requires the following:

• OpenWrt trunk (mcs814x target)
• Repository of external third party packages

The third party repository contains the Flashless Boot Utility (foot) and the Qualcomm Atheros/Intellon 6300 firmware for the on-board Power Line Communication chip. Those are binaries, and this are not part of the standard OpenWrt package set due to their.

Detailed instructions about how to build OpenWrt from scratch for this device can be found here. The steps involved in building and flashing can be summed up like this:

• download OpenWrt trunk
• select Moschip MCS814x target
• select dLAN USB Extender profile
• build OpenWrt for this target

Once the build is finished, you will first need to flash your existing dLAN USB Extender device with a transitional firmware which is available here. Once this transitionnal has been installed and running, it can now accept specific updates using a file on a USB stick.

Once the build finishes. Prepare a USB stick formatted using FAT and whose label is "autoupdate". To do so, you can do the following

(use fdisk to create a FAT partition)
mkfs.vfat /dev/sdc1
mlabel -i /dev/sdc1 ::autoupdate

Now, copy bin/mcs814x/openwrt-mcs814x-dlan-usb-extender-upgrade-squashfs.bin to /dev/sdc1/autoupdate_image, like this:

mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/
cp bin/mcs814x/openwrt-mcs814x-dlan-usb-extender-upgrade-squashfs.bin /mnt/autoupdate_image
sync
umount /mnt

Now plug the USB stick in your dLAN USB Extender device, power cycle it, and wait for the update to begin. The update process will make the USB LED blink fast, then slowly for a couple of minutes. Once done, you will see the Power LED becoming solid green, indicating that the device is fully ready.

CPU: Moschip MCS8140
RAM: 16MB
Flash: 4MB
USB host: yes (1 port)
Power Line: Qualcomm Atheros/Intellon INT6300

Serials console baudrate is : 57600,8n1

Serial console can be found below the PCBA of the device. To solder a serial console device, you must unsolder the two big soldering footprints which provide 110/220V AC current to the PCBA. The test points pinout is the following:

TP10 GND
TP16 Tx
TP15 Rx

(3V3TTL)

On this picture, TP10 is the one on the left. TP15 is then the one which is closest to the right-bottom corner of the picture, and TP16 is in the "middle".