It looks like the orange LED was a regression when the v4 and v5 bases were merged. I'm submitting a pull request now to fix it.
https://github.com/lede-project/source/pull/1555
edit: you were right about v4 having an orange LED. I looked at TP-Link's GPL sources for the v4 and it matches the v5. If you have a v4 you can test with I'd like to hear feedback.
Hey, thank you very much for reposting!!! But to be honest I forgot to check the forum in time and now its gone again ... can you please repost it one more time? I promise Ill download it as soon as it`s available 
there are already "official" snapshot builds:
https://downloads.lede-project.org/snapshots/targets/ar71xx/generic/
Can somebody confirm that the 1043N v5.0 has VLAN tagging?
What is Password 
for SSH? Thx
is the current build still having the bug that locks the router when in high demand (like downloading a torrent?) .
Is there any date(not asking eta, just release cicles ) when it will be released as a normal build with luci integrated ?
Thanks for everything ,this community is pure gold .
Has anyone had issues with failsafe mode? I do multiple presses of the wi-fi/wps button when the device is powering up and the sys led starts blinking really fast but the device does not seem to assign me any ip on any port nor can I ping 192.168.1.1 if I set a static 192.168.1.12 ip to my laptop. Any ideas?
H3ll0, first of all thank you for what you're doing !
Like Brother_Lal's build is not online anymore (ledear71xxgenerictlwr1043nv5squashfsfacto.bin)
I used the snapshot (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr1043n-v5-squashfs-factory.bin) and realized too late than there was no Luci !
Didn't want to open the router so I did what mike's said here (scp and sysupgrade) : [Solved] Back to factory firmware WRT1900ACv2 with majik-sheff's build (lede-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr1043n-v5-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin) and it worked but...
Now I have Luci but the router is always in failsafe mode !
After reading this : https://lede-project.org/docs/user-guide/failsafe_and_factory_reset
I've tried hard and soft factory reset but nothing change and if I try to flash another time (snapshot and majik-sheff's build) :
with Luci : The uploaded image file does not contain a supported format. Make sure that you choose the generic image format for your platform.
sysupgrade in terminal without -F : Invalid image type. Image check 'platform_check_image' failed.
sysupgrade in terminal with -F : Invalid image type.
Image check 'platform_check_image' failed but --force given - will update anyway!
killall: watchdog: no process killed
Commencing upgrade. All shell sessions will be closed now.
Reboot but nothing change..
mtd -r write openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr1043n-v5-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin firmware : Could not open mtd device: firmware Can't open device for writing!
What can I do ?! I suppose answer is connection on Serial port ?
I know this is not directly an answer to your problem but just so you know, if you manage to install the snapshot image again you simply install luci manually via ssh by using the "opkg update; opkg install luci" command.
No need to use the serial port..
Tftp method to restore snapshot image then install Luci manually.
Thank you pingec !
Hello, stupid question, but I have looked at the board photos and I don't see usb port. Does v5 still have the usb port? 
No usb port present in the v5 model
Hi all, just created an account to post thanks for your work to support this thing. I am new to openWRT/Lede and bought one of these by mistake. I was going to send it back when I found this page: https://lede-project.org/toh/hwdata/tp-link/tp-link_tl-wr1043n_v5) via the hardware table. It seems support is quite new in the official build but it's in snapshot.
I was able to download an image and install version "OpenWrt SNAPSHOT r5953-d58c8f4" today with no trouble, using the OEM GUI update function. Installed Luci and QoS modules, configure it all and it's working great.
So thanks to everyone who has been hacking at this one to make it work. Seems like a nice $40 router solution.
Created an account just to give kudos for resolving support on this device. Bought it off assuming it would be nearly identical to the wr1043nd (the 'd' at the end refers to a detachable antenna). OpenWRT forums had little to no discussion about this topic.
All in all, a good router for what it costs, and thanks to the LEDE community for your efforts!
Playing around for a commercial project, will donate once in production!
I just got this router without realising this thing doesn't have USB port (N models usually only lacked detachable antennas).
So anyway, since the hw seems to be similar to 1043nd v4, did anyone tried to solder usb ports ?
Can someone please re-upload Brother_Lal's build, seeing that it's working good for two weeks makes it the best alternative until the official release.
Thank you .
why dont you use the official snapshots?
https://downloads.lede-project.org/snapshots/targets/ar71xx/generic/
Hey, thx for the fast reply.
I'm looking for a build that's stable , i have tried in the past a snapshot(November 2017) and after figuring out how to install luci(I wasn't able to configure my pppoe connection so i had to resort to another router to supply dhcp) , I was dissapointed to find out that it would always crash under heavy load (downloading Ubuntu via deluge).
I'm looking for a image with luci so that i can configure it fast and try it .
The latest snapshot seems to be pretty decent, so try that. I'm running luci on mine without issue.
One dumb question for all; any way to backup bandwidth statistics ? It seems that luci by default stores them to /tmp, which is undesirable when device reboots.
Any scripts or something, so it gets backed up to flash ?