Is Your Router too Boring? Try Using Some Lego Bricks!

Posted 01/14/2010 at 6:08am | by Paul Lilly

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Routers, while essential, aren't particularly sexy. Most of them stick out like a sore thumb, like the Linksys WRT54GL, an old favorite among power users who like to use third party firmware (like Tomato), but might be put off by the ugly blue casing.

That's the dilemma Lego fanatic Luke Anderson found himself in, so what did he do about it? He gutted it and decked out the assembly in Legos, of course!

"My goal was to recreate, as much as possible, the stackable design of the original WRT54GL case while maintaining full functionality of the router (buttons, LEDs, ports). I also wanted to keep some air flowing through the case to avoid overheating the board," Anderson wrote in his worklog.

Anderson spent a couple of days designing his custom case and about $60 in parts, which is roughly $20 more than he paid for the router to begin with. But it's hard to argue with the end result. And the coolest part? He's packaged all of the design documents and images under the Creative Commons license, so if you get the itch (and have the scratch), you can dress up your Linksys router exactly the same way.

Documents and Parts List (155KB)
Full Download with Images (5.5MB)

Image Credit: Luke Anderson