[DEAD] Tenda AC18 AC1900 Smart Dual-Band Gigabit Wi-Fi Router (AC68U clone) $44.99 AP @ Newegg

[VirtualLarry]

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

+ $35 off w/ promo code 27DVZN32, limited offer

There is now a build of FreshTomato firmware available for this router. I snagged one, $45 for an AC68U hardware clone is a pretty decent deal.

Mind the reviews, no-one there mentions Tomato (it's a fairly recent port to this router), but some of the reviews mention the router bricking itself.

It does seem to have the "failsafe" Broadcom CFE server that allows you to flash firmware and clear NVRAM, by using "Recovery Mode" like the AC68U has.

Looking forward to a fun little router project.

Edit: Picked one up, will detail flashing issues, if any, in Networking sub-forum.

Edit: Deal is now dead, but Walmart.com has the Tenda AC15, which is also very similar, if a bit stripped-down and not as cool-looking as the AC18, for under $50. That one will also take a version of FreshTomato 2020.1 ARM ("VPN" version, no "AIO" that I know of, could be due to flash capacity limitations on the AC15.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I finally got my unit installed.

I booted it, plugged in my laptop I use for router firmware flashing, logged into the router, glanced over some of the factory firmware (actually fairly extensive features). Then I downloaded the 2020.1 ARM firmware for the AC18 (Tenda) router, and powered off the router. Held down the Reset button, Powered-on router, waited 5 seconds, then logged into the CFE server, and uploaded the "VPN" firmware for the AC18. Then I let it do it's thing and reboot. Then I couldn't bring up the web server for tomato, or anything. So I waited like 5 minutes after flashing, and then powered off the router, held RESET, powered on, accessed the CFE server, Cleared NVRAM, and then rebooted. Then I was finally able to log into FreshTomato.

Set a few items, admin password, wifi passwords, etc. Then flashed the "AIO" firmware (larger) from within Tomato.

Finished setting it up, and deployed it. By default, FreshTomato does NOT enable "CTF forwarding", which is under "miscellaneous" setting. Before setting that, and Saving and rebooting, I was getting a max of 300Mbit/sec on speedtest.net and fast.com , on my Ryzen desktop, whether using my 2.5GbE RealTek PCI-E x1 card, or my Unitek 1GbE USB3.0 NIC. Once I enabled CTF, I was getting my nearly-gigabit speedtests properly.

Looking forward to seeing these routers on special again sometime. They are a great bargain, at least in terms of what you get for hardware, and then adding FreshTomato, well, it makes a nice complete router package.

I do think that the factory Tenda firmware supports BW monitoring, QoS, dual-WAN, and some VPN support, so if the factory firmware suits you, then I suppose that you could stick with it. I much prefer 3rd-party firmware, even if it doesn't perform as well.