Changing a WAP from Lightweight mode to Autonymous mode
So you're sick of cheap ass wireless access points and you've bought yourself a Cisco Air-LAP1142-X-XX off eBay. To your dismay, it's in Lightweight mode and needs a Cisco wireless controller. Fear not, as you can convert it to autonomous mode pretty easily, as long as you have a Cisco support account that will allow you to download the latest firmware. If you do, download it. You will need a TFTP server of some sort (there are plenty of them for you to find on the internet).
Assuming you know the enable password on the LAP device, do the following:
1. Get into enable mode:
en
2. Go into the debug mode to get the full range of commands:
debug capwap console cli
3. Download the the latest firmware from your TFTP server
archive download-sw /overwrite /force-reload tftp://X.X.X.X/XXXX-k9w7-XXXXXXX.tar
It will reboot itself when it's done and it will now be in Autonomous mode.