I need to put a router in a PC chassis for various reasons, but there is no commercially available product that meets my needs, so I ended up drawing a PCIe to 12V DC Jack adapter board and put some mounting holes on it so it can mount RB450/RB850/RB750 series RouterBOARDs.
The design files are open sourced so feel free to make your own boards if needed. GitHub link: https://github.com/Jamesits/BrainPower
P.S. I really want to see an official RouterBOARD model in the PCIe form factor (and have ethernet and serial actually connected to it)!
Looks really schmick!
One suggestion (you’ve kindof already gone over this) but the integration of a USB to serial controller chip + physical port would be useful to present a COM port back to the PC via the PCI connection and allow direct access to the router (on devices that support it) in the event you lock yourself out etc.
cut the traces! LOL!
on the other hand, you can pretty much install 2 el-cheapo USB-to-Serial modules (like the TTL level Prolific PL2303HX based ones, cost around $1 delivered from eBay) facing back-to-back, with only the rx/tx/gnd lines connected respectively. btw, the same usb to serial chip is used in the woobm module.
this would enable you ‘console’ access to the router via the USB port - once system console is enabled on the newly detected serial port.
depending on your PC operating system, you just need to start a serial terminal app or use screen on linux.
but pay attention to not to connect neither the 5V or the 3.3V pins on any of the adaptors.
100% do not recomment the prolific adapters, they are prone to “driver hell”, almost all of the el-cheapo ones are counterfeit, huge pain to deal with those, especially when running windows.
on a side note, i went on looking for some easy to solder (TQFP) ethernet controllers on digikey, all i could find is some Atmel/Microchip Pcie3.1 → gigabit offering.
All of the Intel/Broadcom stuff is either BGA or QFN (possible but to be avoided…)
I think it would be the nicest thing to have a self-conteined mikrotik “firewall”, that could be installed inside the case, and only expose ethernets managed by the routerboard to the outside world. Unfortunatelly, i think none of the current routerboards would allow for that, form-factors won’t fit in the space (with a viable orientation of ports…)
KUDOS for the implementation tough, very cool!