Hello all, I hope I didn't make a mistake, because I'm exhausted researching this and while I love the mikrotik router (my first foray into these types of routers) not having the ability to connect my access point is a dealbreaker.

I picked up a RB750Gr3 and while everything was working great until I tried to configure wireless to connect my external AP (netgear r7000) to it. All the guides i've found online reference using a WLAN interface in the router but i'm able to do that as the RB750Gr3 doesn't have WLAN hardware. The confusing part is, the wireless section is in Winbox, so why would it be in there if the router can't work with wireless? This is the guide i've been following:

http://dumbpcs.blogspot.com/2013/06/usi ... o-non.html:

What the above blog post aims to do is exactly what I'm trying to do, but with the RB750Gr3 there's no WLAN available and when I try to create the WLAN interface as a station pseudobridge, I get stopped by master interface = unknown and I can't populate anything in there, which prevents me from moving forward.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm currently running the latest RouterOS (stable) 6.40.

RB750Gr3 simply does not have WiFi interface. Even if you see Wireless section then there is no interface listed.
ROS is universal and same for all models and lists "modules" even they are not usable if only they are enabled.
It is sometimes misleading.

That was my fear, when I purchased it I thought it was able to somehow work with an external AP. My mistake. Guess its going back.

Thanks for confirming.

Unless you have some special requirements ...
If you love the RB750Gr3, just use that as the router and put the Netgear r7000 in bridge mode.
https://kb.netgear.com/24105/What-is-br ... awk-router

That way, you get the much more robust networking power of the RB while keeping the r7000 wireless capability.

You can always link your AP with Ethernet to the Hex.

My go-to home setup has been a hex and a (or several) wap ac units. I like the separation of responsibilities it provides. This simplifies configurations for me as well as let's the CPU on the hex focus on routing and encryption tasks while the AP CPU focuses on providing and moving Wi-Fi packets around. Lastly I can place the APs in various places away from the service provider drop as needed.

Don't return the RB750Gr3. It's the best router for the money by a long shot.

What people think of as a "router" these days is really probably 3 or 4 separate products:

1. A router (in the literal sense, or a NAT gateway)
2. A switch
3. A WiFi access point (which is fundamentally a layer 2 activity)
4. A firewall
(Not to mention DHCP and server, DNS relay (cache?), among other things. Not all of these things necessarily have to to exist on the same hardware.)

But this gets missed, because there are hundreds of questions on this forum about how to use multiple "routers" when really all they are asking is how to use multiple WiFi Routers as multiple WiFi access points.

Connect the non WAN port of the "WiFi router" (to be used as an access point) to the non WAN port of the RB750Gr3, and turn off the DHCP server on the Wifi router.

Done.

Thanks guys, I do really love the mikrotik after playing with it over the past 48 hours and it's now working exactly as i hoped. I'm using the Mikrotik for routing/firewall/dhcp/dns and the Netgear Router for additional unmanaged switched ethernet ports and a wireless AP.

For anyone down the road who is stumped like I was, like acruhl said above, it's really easy. I just flashed the netgear r7000 (AP) with tomato and did the following:

1. Under Basic > Network> WAN Settings > Type > Disabled
2. In the same area, check the box to bridge the WAN port to the LAN ports (for an extra port LAN port, because why not)
3. Delete the existing bridge and re-create it, put in an available IP on your mikrotik subnet, ensure DHCP is unchecked
4. Configure the Default Gateway and Static DNS to point to the mikrotik
5. Under Advanced > Routing > ensure Mode=Router and not Gateway

It was actually pretty easy and I'm not sure why I didn't try this first before looking online for guides. Attached a screenshot covering step 1-4.