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The Chinese company Phicomm offers a device in its range of Wi-Fi routers called the K3C AC1900 Smart WLAN Router.
The device utilizes a combination of Intel AnyWAN SoC GRX350 and Intel Home Wi-Fi Chipset WAV500 (by the way, the same hardware is used in ASUS Blue Cave: the same Intel PXB4583EL processor and Intel PSB83514M/PSB83524M Wi-Fi chips instead of PSB83513M/PSB83523M).
There are several versions of this router:
- B1, B1G, B2 — for China;
- A1, C1, S1(VIE1) — for other countries (I got the C1 with firmware v.34.1.7.30).
What interested me about this IEEE 802.11ac router?
It's that it has: 4 Gigabit ports (1 WAN and 3 LAN), a 5GHz range, support for MU-MIMO 3×3:3, and USB 3.0. And much more.
1. A Bit of Background
An Optional PartMy previous router was TP-Link TL-WR941ND with hardware version 3.6 (4MB Flash and 32MB RAM). The standard firmware periodically froze for no reason regardless of the versions (I updated it a couple of times, the last update for my hardware came out at the end of 2012).
Frustrated with the native firmware, I flashed (if I remember correctly, version 1.8; the firmware is based on OpenWRT, for those who are not familiar) and finally the router started working as it should.
The WR941 had decent hardware for my needs at the time of purchase (which was about 10 years ago), but now I found its performance insufficient. All ports are 100 Mbps, the maximum Wi-Fi speed is 300 Mbps. This might still be adequate for internet use, but transferring files over the local network between devices is quite slow. There's also not enough built-in Flash memory even for localization of the firmware (even replacing files through WinSCP, I tried somehow), let alone installing more resource-intensive plugins (of course, you can expand memory, install firmware for increased memory capacity, but I lack the direct skills for re-soldering memory chips).
However, even all of the above probably wouldn’t have forced me to change routers soon. It was just that at the beginning of September this year, I bought a Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 to replace the untimely deceased Redmi Note 4 (after 2 years of exemplary service) and it turned out that RN5 and WR941 are mutually incompatible — RN5 wouldn't reconnect after being disconnected from the wireless network created by WR941 (and this is not an isolated issue, as I found out a bit later while reading ).
In general, the need to change the router has arisen. Why choose this one specifically? I was interested in its internals (I read about it just a year ago on SmallNetBuilder) and capabilities (although it's unlikely that even half of them will be used in the near future). But even that wasn't the deciding factor in choosing the Phicomm K3C (I was also considering the Xiaomi Mi WiFi Router 3G), but the affordable price (I bought it for $32 at the exchange rate) with decent internals and the ability to replace the stock firmware with a full version of OpenWRT. The router comes with a stripped-down version of OpenWRT from the manufacturer (I read somewhere that a spy was added to it, but I didn't find any details).
The OpenWRT modification for the Phicomm K3C (OpenWRT officially does not support the Intel WAV500 chipset) was created by a Chinese user with the nickname Paldier (his and for this router, on the OpenWRT forum). He also made a firmware port for Asus Merlin for K3C (since its installation requires replacing RAM from 256MB to 512MB, we will not consider it).
2. Technical specifications of Phicomm K3C
I hope there's no need to translate them into the great and mighty?
Technical Specifications of Phicomm K3C
Hardware
WiFi Standards
IEEE802.11 ac/n/a 5 GHz and IEEE 802.11b/g/n 2.4 GHz
CPU
GRX350 Dual Core main processor + 2 wireless co-processors
Ports
1x 10/100/1000 Mbps WAN, 3x 10/100/1000 Mbps LAN, 1x USB 3.0, Flash 128 MB, RAM 256 MB
Buttons
Power, Reset
External Power Supply
12V DC / 3A
Antennas
6 high gain antennas inside
Dimensions
212 mm x 74 mm x 230.5 mm
Radio Parameter
Transfer Rate
max. 1,900 Mbps
Frequency
2.4 GHz = max. 600 Mbps and 5 GHz = max. 1,300 Mbps
Basic functions
Enable / disable wireless, Hide SSID, AP Isolation
Advanced functions
MU-MIMO, Smart ConnectWiFi Security:WPA/WPA2, WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK
Software
WAN type
Dynamic IP / Static IP / PPPoE / PPTP / L2TP
Port forwarding
Virtual Server, DMZ, UPnPDHCP:DHCP Server, Client List
Security
Firewall, Remote Management
Utility functions
Guest Network, DDNS, Client Settings, VPN Pass-Through, Bandwidth Control
USB functions
Storage Sharing, Media Server, FTP Server
Other Features
Package Content
K3C router, power supply unit, ethernet cable, QIG including DoC and GPL licenses
Operating Temperature
0 — 40°C
Storage Temperature
-40 — 70°C
Operating Humidity
10 — 90% non-condensing
Storage Humidity
5 — 90% non-condensing
Taken from (the other options — a Chinese site with translations into several languages and delays).
You can also read a bit more about it on (the site for some unknown reason did not renew the expired certificate on October 20 and the page can be viewed at ).
If you're interested in a detailed review, tests, and photos of this device's internals, you can find everything on and (there are many photos, all in Chinese).
3. OpenWRT firmware
- Connect the router to a computer/laptop via the LAN port (any of the three) and to the internet via WAN (as we need to download the firmware, which is slightly over 30MB).
- Find out the router's local network address (we'll need it later, usually it is 192.168.2.1).
- Run the previously downloaded utility RoutAckPro (600KB in size and a lot of Chinese text inside; I'm not sure where it's best to upload it, but it can be downloaded from after registering on it). If the address is different from the one mentioned above, enter it in the IP form. Click the Telnetbutton. If everything is done correctly, the message 打开Telnet完成will appear in the window. Now the utility can be closed, meaning we've prepared the router for firmware change via Telnet.
RoutAckPro window - Using the PuTTY program (Smartty or another similar one) connect to the router via Telnet (the IP is the same as for RoutAckPro, port — 23).
PuTTY window with connection settings. - In the PuTTY console, enter the command to navigate to the tmp directory:
cd /tmp - Determine which firmware we need to download (the hardware version is printed on a sticker attached to the bottom of the router; in my case, it says "H/W C1", so I need firmware for C1).
- Choose the required version of the file on fullimage.img . For me, this isSo, in the PuTTY console, type the following:
http://k3c.paldier.com/openwrt/C1/fullimage.img
wget http://k3c.paldier.com/openwrt/C1/fullimage.img
Then type the command - and wait for the message of successful flashing.
/usr/sbin/upgrade /tmp/fullimage.img fullimage 0 1After that, type
- rm -rf /overlay/* sync && sleep 10 && reboot
and wait for the router to restart (a couple of minutes). After that, you can connect to its web interface (address, password 192.168.2.1, admin admin).
- After the first boot, it's advisable to reset (using the hidden button on the router, slightly to the right of the power socket, or through the web interface).
Now the router will have this interface
The re-flashing instructions were created by a user on the 4PDA forum , for which I am very grateful.
If you don't want to connect the K3C to the internet immediately and have a USB flash drive or USB card reader with a flash card. Skip step 5, and in step 7, instead of downloading the firmware file to the router with the wget command, download it to your PC (just in case you might need it later) and copy the file to a flash drive and connect it to the router's USB port.
In point 8, enter the following command:
/usr/sbin/upgrade /tmp/usb/.run/mountd/sda1/fullimage.img fullimage 0 1The rest of the points remain unchanged.
4. Localizing the interface
Unfortunately, the firmware from Paldier does not include a Russian translation, but it has a list of websites that should be blocked in China (so with the default settings, we can't access GitHub, but this can be resolved by unchecking one option in the V2Ray settings).
Therefore, we will install the Russian localization for LuCI.
This is done quite easily:
- Go to System ==> Software ==> the tab Actions.
- In the field Download and install package enter
http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-base-ru_git-19.297.26179-fbefeed-1_all.ipkand click the button Ok on the right.
A list of links to packages for localizing the interface and a quick way to install them
http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-advanced-reboot-ru_git-19.297.26179-fbefeed-42_all.ipk http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-aria2-ru_1.0.1-2_all.ipk http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-base-ru_git-19.297.26179-fbefeed-1_all.ipk http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-ddns-ru_2.4.9-3_all.ipk http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-firewall-ru_git-19.297.26179-fbefeed-1_all.ipk http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-hd-idle-ru_git-19.297.26179-fbefeed-1_all.ipk http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-minidlna-ru_git-19.297.26179-fbefeed-1_all.ipk http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-mwan3-ru_git-19.297.26179-fbefeed-1_all.ipk http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-nlbwmon-ru_git-19.297.26179-fbefeed-1_all.ipk http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-samba-ru_git-19.297.26179-fbefeed-1_all.ipk http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-transmission-ru_git-19.297.26179-fbefeed-1_all.ipk http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-upnp-ru_git-19.297.26179-fbefeed-1_all.ipk http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/packages/mips_24kc/luci/luci-i18n-wireguard-ru_git-19.297.26179-fbefeed-1_all.ipk*As you noticed, we have OpenWRT 15.05 firmware, while the packages are from OpenWRT 18.06.0. But this is normal, as the LuCI in the firmware is based on OpenWRT 18.06
Alternatively, we can download these packages, save them to a flash drive, and then connect it to the router's USB port and install them through PuTTY with the command
opkg install /tmp/usb/.run/mountd/sda1/luci-i18n-*.ipk*All ipk-packages located at the path /tmp/usb/.run/mountd/sda1/ and having names that start with luci-i18n-. This is the fastest way to localize (it will take a few seconds to install): through the web interface, you will have to install each package separately (and I'm not sure if it will be possible to update from local storage) and the installation will take a few minutes; you need to specify the path to each package via the internet and PuTTY, which is also not very fast.
- We go to any section or just refresh the page, and you can enjoy an almost fully Russian-language interface (some modules do not have Russian localization).
Theme AdvancedTomatoMaterial
Theme Bootstrap - We also have the Russian (Russian) option in the list of available languages.
5. Adding dark themes
I will also explain how to install a dark theme so that the default themes don't burn your eyes.
Refer to the previous action algorithm for adding a language and replace the link in it with
http://apollo.open-resource.org/downloads/luci-theme-darkmatter_0.2-beta-2_all.ipk As a result, we get a nice theme in the list of themes Darkmatter.
You can also install the dark modification of the Bootstrap theme (I like it the most because it works faster than the material ones). You can get it (in the archive attached to that message *.ipk.zip a double-packed package with the theme).
Dark Theme by Sunny based on Bootstrap
I currently have a slightly modified version of it.
P.S. Constructive suggestions regarding design/content are welcome.
Source: habr.com
