​How to Unbrick a TP-Link Node

Thanks to Joe AE6XE for the Linux instructions
 

Using Linux or Unix

The TP-Link devices are a bit more complicated to recover than Ubiquiti.    It takes a little Unix command line knowledge.   The process is similar to the Mikrotik process:

1. Create a directory on your linux laptop /tftp and copy from the vendor support site the appropriate tp-link recovery .bin image for this device.
   
   Download the latest firmware version for your device from tp-link.com Download Center.  This file will be compressed so an unzip tools such as WinZIP or WinRAR will be needed to extract the firmware file to a folder.

2. Rename this image to recovery.bin

3. Set the laptop to static IP address 192.168.0.100

4. Become root to execute the dnsmasq command in step 5

5. a) Figure out what your network card interface name  is with an 'ifconfig'  ('ipconfig' on windows.)   
   b) This is the interface you set to 192.168.0.100. 
   c) Replace the name of the interface in the following command from "eno1" to whatever yours is. 
   d) Replace your typical log in name in the command below from 'joe' to whatever you normally login with:
   
   Command Line Example:​
   dnsmasq -i eno1 --dhcp-range=192.168.0.105,192.168.0.254 --dhcp-boot=recovery.bin --enable-tftp --tftp-root=/tftp/ -d -u joe -p0 -K --log-dhcp --bootp-dynamic

6. Connect the TP-Link device with your laptop ideally through a dumb switch.   You can use direct cables, but this may be problematic as the links can be down given the timing and things don't work as expected.

7. a) Push the reset button on the TP-Link, then power it on. 
    b) Hold the button until you see output log information from the laptop window where you ran the dnsmasq command, around 20 seconds. 
    c) Let up the button as they start communicating.  
    d) When you see the "sent" message, this is success and the tp-link should have downloaded the image and will reboot in a minute or two.

Hopefully, it is now back to factory state as received in the mail.   Note, there are some
TP-Link devices we are seeing where this does not work and there isn't a straight forward way, e.g. physically pull the flash chip out and burn an image to it.
 

Using Windows

 
Follow the instructions given in the TP-Link Forum in the thread: How to use firmware recovery function of Pharos CPE (https://forum.tp-link.com/showthread.php?81684-How-to-use-firmware-recovery-function-of-Pharos-CPE)
You will need to have a tftp server running on your Windows computer. One source for this server software is the TFTPD32/TFTPD64 application (http://tftpd32.jounin.net/tftpd32_download.html)