Can twoprops turn this solar spotlight into an autonomous Meshtastic relay?
Ever since I had to move my Meshtastic node to the north side of the house, the traffic has dropped way off and I’m missing a lot of messages. The problem is that the node requires power. Not much, but a little. When I put it within a USB-C cable length of the house, the house interferes with the radio signals. Even if I could mount it far from the house, then the Bluetooth Low Energy signals that connect the node to my phone become unreliable.
I think the solution is to build a node that’s solar+battery powered, and can function as a totally autonomous relay. Then a node in my house, which doesn’t end up having much range, only has to connect to the autonomous node that I can put up near the top of a 60’ tall bamboo shoot. That node should get great connectivity to every node within a few kilometers of the compound (and I now know that there are quite a few), and I should be in business.
I could buy a pre-made package of a solar panel, battery, and LoRa radio in a waterproof case with mounting hardware, but such things are about $150, which is a bit rich for me and far too much to spend if I want to scatter autonomous repeaters around the mountainside.
I already have another Heltec LoRa node:
I could roll my own using:
- a LoRa radio such as the one above, available for less than $20
- a solar panel
- but I’d have to make some kind of mount for it
- and I’d have to cable it to the LoRa node
- they’re usually $15-$20
- a lithium battery
- it’s difficult and expensive to get lithium batteries shipped to the island
- the battery itself is about $9
- a weatherproof case
- they’re not hard to get, but they run around $20
- a mount
- tricky to design and build, especially since I haven’t yet figured out how to get my 3D printers to work in this ultra-humid cloud forest environment
I’m a fan of taking mass-produced consumer products, which are often cheaper than the sum of their component part costs, and repurposing them for more niche needs. It occurs to me that solar yard lights — such as the one above I just bought for $20 — already have a solar panel, a battery, a weather-resistant case, and a mounting system. So for less than $40 for the spotlight and the LoRa board I should be able to make my autonomous relay.
The remaining question is whether there’s room enough to wedge the Heltec LoRa radio inside the spotlight case after removing the actual lighting hardware.
Adventure awaits!
—2p