Meshtastic

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Help me with designing a node (feddit.dk)

submitted 9 months ago by EvilCartyen@feddit.dk to c/meshtastic@mander.xyz

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I want to put a node up on my house to act as a repeater or station, but I don't know how to spec it from the PCB available as-is on Aliexpress and other venues.

So - what would you do?

Which board
Which antenna
Which power source (solar + battery?)

It needs to function on an unheated loft in Denmark year-round...

Surely, some of you have done this before, so please halp :)

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[–] gafu@techhub.social 1 points 9 months ago

@deafboy @EvilCartyen

Antenna: smaller than 17cm for 868 sucks.
Dont use these if you dont need this small size like for fit a small node in yozr pocket never use this inefficient things in places where you can put a real antenna.
Dont know how tight the budget is, there are very cheap options if needed with good performance.

Solar for the european winter: a 5v solar panel with more than 500mA real current (like 30 or 35 "chinese watts"). Look for panels with sizes like 15x30 cm or bigger

Get a big battery for the winter weeks with no sun. 5Ah at least. Combine this with nrf52 based hardware.
So a 5Ah cell will be charged from a 0,5A solar panel with 0,1C charging current. This low currents are not critical in cold temperatures.
Bigger battery = lower charge current (current per battery capacity) 500mA for a 10Ah battery will be 0,05C current only. With this small charging currents normal li-ion cells are useable in the winter too.