Ive had great luck with your solar node setup with just 2x 18650 batteries. 85-99% indicated battery level over the past few weeks since deployed. Thanks a bunch for making it so seamless.
Just found/subbed your channel. Been using Meshtastic for a few years now (mainly for their gps and directional uses, rarher than their comms usage). I'm so happy to hear someone else is doing stabdalone repeater nodes so i didnt have to half-ass it myself! 😂
I recognize I'm late to this party, but I highly recommend those with extreme weather temps to look into using supercapacitors as a power backup. They're easily charged with solar panels, have extremely linear capacity voltages, can cycle thousands of times with little to no loss of capacity, and they're generally safe at -40° through 65°C. Their energy density leaves a lot to be desired, but if it's a permanent rooftop installation and size isn't a concern, they should definitely be considered.
Thanks for the update on the pcb enhancement, certainly a good idea for a remote unit (We really do have far less Sun than you) and the poe for a location with wired/4G wireless Internet availability is something I was considering for a location co-sited with an existing amateur UHF repeater. Richard G8ITB.
To help educate those, trying to figure out what "picky" means. There are two major types of PoE. Passive: this passively puts a range of voltages down the ethernet cable depending on the power brick and vendor you use, vendors will usually have their own "standard", and theyre typically incompatible between companies/equipment. Ive seen it as low as 8v, and as high as 54V, and some are positive on pins 1,2, and negative on 7,8. Some are positive on 5,6 and negative on 7,8. Motorola had a product line that was 48v on 7,8 and negative on 1,2. Mixed bag avoid if possible. Active (802.3af/at): this is negotiated, is 48 volts, and either 15W, 30W or upto 50W. This is a standard what I believe the RAK modules support (standard compliant, hence the number above). Look for 802.3at or 802.3af in product descriptions to get the most compatible equipment.
Very nice!! Need to snag me some of the POE/network boards and refresh what I built for our gate controls. Gate was harder since I had to step up the voltage. Anyway, POE provided connection to my IOT network and kept battery charged battery charged using the same POE type splitter you used. On the gate, If POE goes out, the device switches to Wifi and the battery kicks in for a few days. Avoids the need for solar panels or good weather. If my POE is out for more than a few days, I'll be expecting Noah to sail on by ...
Depends on what you buy, for sure. I’ve had one (AMZN: “UCTRONICS USB-C PoE Splitter Gigabit”) that lives on my roof in a box running a Raspberry PI (ADSB). Temps in the summer outside the box get up above 110F, much toastier in the box. It’s been out there for an entire year without so much as a hiccup. Granted, if it fails it’s fairly easy to me to get back on the roof. If you can get a daughterboard - probably still the best option. But when they aren’t available, there are certainly decent options out there.
@@StephenShreds In this case, Yes. The "mother" board is the mainboard, and any sub-boards that attach to it are typically referred to as a "daughter board". In Raspberry Pi parlance you'd call it a "HAT". So you could have a daughterboard that does cellular, or gps, or POE. Depends. But in this case, I was talking about a POE board.
I think this is the exact thing I was looking for! I bought two wisblock starter kits from rokland on prime day, kinda with this in mind but was just going to wing it
I would really like a video on how to protect (if there even is any effective way) hardware against EMP. Particularly if you've got LoRa stuff already in place for SHTF reasons.
Simply put, a radio is sensitive to radio frequency by design. EMP is a lot of radio frequency at high power all at once. EMP is to a radio what a blinding light is to your eyes. The only way to protect a radio from EMP is to keep it in a grounded metal box, preferably underground.
@@kerbalairforce8802 With regards to a rollout of spares, if a malicious EMP does take place plan on a 2nd one happening 2 weeks to a month after the first as it's meant to affect the rollout of backup hardware.
A warm welcome to the Meshtastic community. I wanted to build a repeater with mqtt. My idea was to have the repeater run all the time over PoE and thus connected to mqtt. On the other hand, in times of crisis when we have a power shortage it would switch to solar power and still work as a repeater only of course already without mqtt. This then gives us greater reliability and flexibility of communication. Has anyone already done such a project? I'm wondering if there is a switch that will detect a change in voltage and switch from PoE to battery/solar power without interruption. Thanks in advance for your reply!
As it relates to the add on network module. If the switch supports the ability to select 10/100 vs auto / 1GB - lock the switch to 10/100 and see if the results improve.
I picked up a couple of the lora meshtastic units a few years ago to try to relay through a satellite but I never found one that operated on US Lora frequencies. Has that changed?
I have had issues with the PoE only RAK board not getting power with some PoE injectors/switches. have been told to have a battery connected. not sure if this will work as i have not tested myself yet but might be worth looking into.
Poe splitters can cause a lot of HF noise what could limit the range of the meshtastic radios. I built a setup with a raspberry and SDR and the splitter generated too much noise for me.
Did your custom PCB board ever come to fruition? Or am I just too late to the party. I see the wisblock acrylic mounts and the π/wisblock stack thingy on your Etsy but don’t see the PCB?
You didn't miss anything! It just never came to fruition unfortunately. Luckily most of the flatpack batteries have that protection built in and is part of the reason why the WisBlock mount that has a spot to mount a flatpack battery was made available on the Etsy shop.
@@The_Comms_Channel I see. Well good to know. I’m finally making your solar setup so I’m rewatching all the videos and heard it mentioned. No worries. Hopefully that PoE one will work just fine. Thank you. 😊
Great content! Ive been searching for this solution for several weeks now! With the PoE and Ethernet setup can you access the web interface of the radio over LAN? I potentially have numerous locations with UPS supplied PoE switches but need LAN interface as they will be beyond regular Bluetooth range for configuration etc.
@@The_Comms_Channel sorry I didn’t mean to imply the web interface of the radio as such I meant the board / ESP32. Is there a way to access the web client via LAN whilst using PoE to power it?
@@Kaimera23 oh, gotcha. Are you referring to the client.meshtastic.org? That doesn't work, but you could use something like the Meshtastic Network Management Client to make changes. I was mistaken about the CLI, it appears that doesn't work. MQTT and the net management client work though.
Mmimum operation voltage for the RAK is afaik 3V - lower than that it shuts down because of undervoltage. do we really need a battery protection circuit then? If so, the protection circuit from keith is the way to go since almost all "generic" ones you can buy also shut off at 2,5V = too low. That was the reason he designed his own in the first place....
Im trying to plan how big of a system to set up. How long of a range would this give on a flat terrain (a large range would do)? Hypothetically, I understand there are lots of factors to take in
Can you provide the link to the battery protection board you showed in the beginning with plugs on both ends, I can only find ones that need soldering.
One thing I've not seen addressed. All these Meshtastic boards came from some other use, I assume. What was that other use case? Also, I assume because of the previous use case and the screwy Chinese sellers. There seems to always be something simple but very wrong with nearly every board sold. Either the antenna sucks, controls are flakey. You have to source parts from multiple places to get a fully working system in an enclosure. I realize this is all kind of kit stuff. But still, you'd think someone would put a reasonable kit together? Or a not screwy solution.
These are IoT devices and are heavily used for this, including commercial use. I've purchased about 40 boards at this point and not had a single issue with any of them. RAK sells complete kits ready to go with solar for commercial use, but they're commercial use prices that people who want to use them for Meshtastic would be unwilling to pay.
@@The_Comms_Channel awesome! Can’t wait. I love channels like this. My background is mech eng focused so I don’t really have any experience with this kind of stuff but really wanted to make my own mesh network. Having someone who knows exactly what to do explain each step is greatly appreciated. Going to finally build your solar setup for the roof. Thanks again. 👊🏼
i wonder if chines citizens could use this to communicate with each other without big brother government getting involved. could be a good tool for organization. food for thought.
Chinese citizens are so closely monitored that if they buy this stuff, their government will start watching them more closely. (Likely also true in USA)
@@The_Comms_Channel yes i did, are trying to now defend the use of a battery backup POE switch? what happens when that runs out. How bout make real world sh!t people could use that will be using these things when sh!t hits the fan, like explaining to them that even a cheap taken apart solar garden light can power these and keep them powered for pennies. how bout those kinds of setups that will matter come d-day. while your tinkering with them as fun most people that will buy these are buying them for very specific reasons and not for ever day use when everything on the planet is all fine and dandy.
It'll run over a month on the PoE battery backup. I've done a whole series of videos on solar powered versions of this. Maybe try taking a look at my other videos before commenting. Are you seriously complaining about the PoE setup and talking about a garden light setup in the same comment? 😂
Ive had great luck with your solar node setup with just 2x 18650 batteries. 85-99% indicated battery level over the past few weeks since deployed. Thanks a bunch for making it so seamless.
Sure thing! Love hearing these success stories!
Man this just gets nerdier and nerdier and FINALLY...
Great video brother thanks for the shout
Sure thing! Really appreciate your mention the other day. Means a lot to smaller channels like mine trying to grow.
I am really excited about all the PoE devices that are now available. It is like a whole new world of cool architecture.
I’m glad I found your channel per Ringway Manchester 😊
Just found/subbed your channel. Been using Meshtastic for a few years now (mainly for their gps and directional uses, rarher than their comms usage).
I'm so happy to hear someone else is doing stabdalone repeater nodes so i didnt have to half-ass it myself! 😂
I recognize I'm late to this party, but I highly recommend those with extreme weather temps to look into using supercapacitors as a power backup. They're easily charged with solar panels, have extremely linear capacity voltages, can cycle thousands of times with little to no loss of capacity, and they're generally safe at -40° through 65°C. Their energy density leaves a lot to be desired, but if it's a permanent rooftop installation and size isn't a concern, they should definitely be considered.
Thanks for the update on the pcb enhancement, certainly a good idea for a remote unit (We really do have far less Sun than you) and the poe for a location with wired/4G wireless Internet availability is something I was considering for a location co-sited with an existing amateur UHF repeater. Richard G8ITB.
To help educate those, trying to figure out what "picky" means.
There are two major types of PoE.
Passive: this passively puts a range of voltages down the ethernet cable depending on the power brick and vendor you use, vendors will usually have their own "standard", and theyre typically incompatible between companies/equipment. Ive seen it as low as 8v, and as high as 54V, and some are positive on pins 1,2, and negative on 7,8. Some are positive on 5,6 and negative on 7,8. Motorola had a product line that was 48v on 7,8 and negative on 1,2. Mixed bag avoid if possible.
Active (802.3af/at): this is negotiated, is 48 volts, and either 15W, 30W or upto 50W. This is a standard what I believe the RAK modules support (standard compliant, hence the number above).
Look for 802.3at or 802.3af in product descriptions to get the most compatible equipment.
When I say picky, I'm not talking about PoE. The non-PoE Ethernet module is picky about what it wants to connect to.
Very nice!! Need to snag me some of the POE/network boards and refresh what I built for our gate controls. Gate was harder since I had to step up the voltage. Anyway, POE provided connection to my IOT network and kept battery charged battery charged using the same POE type splitter you used. On the gate, If POE goes out, the device switches to Wifi and the battery kicks in for a few days. Avoids the need for solar panels or good weather. If my POE is out for more than a few days, I'll be expecting Noah to sail on by ...
FYI those POE to USB/ETH boxes are not reliable. I've had a number of them fail on me at remote sites. Switched all devices to POE daughterboards.
Depends on what you buy, for sure. I’ve had one (AMZN: “UCTRONICS USB-C PoE Splitter Gigabit”) that lives on my roof in a box running a Raspberry PI (ADSB). Temps in the summer outside the box get up above 110F, much toastier in the box. It’s been out there for an entire year without so much as a hiccup. Granted, if it fails it’s fairly easy to me to get back on the roof. If you can get a daughterboard - probably still the best option. But when they aren’t available, there are certainly decent options out there.
Is a daughter board a separate pcb focused entirely on Poe?
@@StephenShreds In this case, Yes. The "mother" board is the mainboard, and any sub-boards that attach to it are typically referred to as a "daughter board". In Raspberry Pi parlance you'd call it a "HAT". So you could have a daughterboard that does cellular, or gps, or POE. Depends. But in this case, I was talking about a POE board.
love those Bearcats.
@andy Kirby has some great videos too
Yep, great channel!
Thanks subscribed and ordered 2 of the wis block kits. Looking forward for some sensors from about 15 miles away really excited if that works.
I think this is the exact thing I was looking for!
I bought two wisblock starter kits from rokland on prime day, kinda with this in mind but was just going to wing it
Perfect 🙂
@@The_Comms_Channel do you have a video for configuring a standalone node like the POE build?
Fantastic info. Thank you!!
Sure thing! Thank you!
I would really like a video on how to protect (if there even is any effective way) hardware against EMP. Particularly if you've got LoRa stuff already in place for SHTF reasons.
Simply put, a radio is sensitive to radio frequency by design.
EMP is a lot of radio frequency at high power all at once.
EMP is to a radio what a blinding light is to your eyes.
The only way to protect a radio from EMP is to keep it in a grounded metal box, preferably underground.
Short version: put up your relays, but keep spares in protective storage.
Short version: put up your relays, but keep spares in protective storage.
@@kerbalairforce8802 With regards to a rollout of spares, if a malicious EMP does take place plan on a 2nd one happening 2 weeks to a month after the first as it's meant to affect the rollout of backup hardware.
Where did you get the extendable tripod? Thats nice!
09:08 What are the 3 devices on the rack on the left side that all look the same? Kinda cool looking.
Scanners
@@mediocreman2 Good movie.
A warm welcome to the Meshtastic community.
I wanted to build a repeater with mqtt. My idea was to have the repeater run all the time over PoE and thus connected to mqtt. On the other hand, in times of crisis when we have a power shortage it would switch to solar power and still work as a repeater only of course already without mqtt. This then gives us greater reliability and flexibility of communication. Has anyone already done such a project? I'm wondering if there is a switch that will detect a change in voltage and switch from PoE to battery/solar power without interruption.
Thanks in advance for your reply!
Good looking pooch
As it relates to the add on network module. If the switch supports the ability to select 10/100 vs auto / 1GB - lock the switch to 10/100 and see if the results improve.
Not sure the ones I had issues with have that ability, but that's a good idea in case others run into issues 👍
I picked up a couple of the lora meshtastic units a few years ago to try to relay through a satellite but I never found one that operated on US Lora frequencies. Has that changed?
BASED
Are there any lighting related safety concerns associated with this build if you were to mount it from the house?
Great videos! Building out BirminghamMesh here.
Nice!! Keep us updated!
I have had issues with the PoE only RAK board not getting power with some PoE injectors/switches. have been told to have a battery connected. not sure if this will work as i have not tested myself yet but might be worth looking into.
Poe splitters can cause a lot of HF noise what could limit the range of the meshtastic radios. I built a setup with a raspberry and SDR and the splitter generated too much noise for me.
My splitter has no interference in the ISM band
Looking for a kinetic charger for tree limb mounting.
Or I’m blind or you missed the link in the description to the video about what is meshtastic from the other channel?
ruclips.net/video/N3FXej9fqIk/видео.htmlsi=IzY7A9fOspGlp-Tx
What would be the advantage of this over say... A T-echo with a battery bank and a solar panel?
No advantage. Preference.
If you have access to grid power, use it. If you don’t have power available, solar the way to go for long term
Did your custom PCB board ever come to fruition? Or am I just too late to the party. I see the wisblock acrylic mounts and the π/wisblock stack thingy on your Etsy but don’t see the PCB?
You didn't miss anything! It just never came to fruition unfortunately. Luckily most of the flatpack batteries have that protection built in and is part of the reason why the WisBlock mount that has a spot to mount a flatpack battery was made available on the Etsy shop.
@@The_Comms_Channel I see. Well good to know. I’m finally making your solar setup so I’m rewatching all the videos and heard it mentioned. No worries. Hopefully that PoE one will work just fine. Thank you. 😊
Great content! Ive been searching for this solution for several weeks now!
With the PoE and Ethernet setup can you access the web interface of the radio over LAN? I potentially have numerous locations with UPS supplied PoE switches but need LAN interface as they will be beyond regular Bluetooth range for configuration etc.
The radio itself doesn't have a web interface like the ESP32 devices, but you can use the Web client or CLI to make changes
@@The_Comms_Channel sorry I didn’t mean to imply the web interface of the radio as such I meant the board / ESP32.
Is there a way to access the web client via LAN whilst using PoE to power it?
@@Kaimera23 oh, gotcha. Are you referring to the client.meshtastic.org? That doesn't work, but you could use something like the Meshtastic Network Management Client to make changes. I was mistaken about the CLI, it appears that doesn't work. MQTT and the net management client work though.
Mmimum operation voltage for the RAK is afaik 3V - lower than that it shuts down because of undervoltage. do we really need a battery protection circuit then? If so, the protection circuit from keith is the way to go since almost all "generic" ones you can buy also shut off at 2,5V = too low. That was the reason he designed his own in the first place....
@The_Comms_Channel Will you point me to the circuit protection from "keith"
Im trying to plan how big of a system to set up. How long of a range would this give on a flat terrain (a large range would do)? Hypothetically, I understand there are lots of factors to take in
Google RF line of sight tool you can put in two gps coordinates at what height the radios are & it will tell you if they can talk
Sweet, I'll have to play with it a bit. Thanks!
What connection system are you using for the watertight fit to the exterior with the antenna?
store.rokland.com/products/uflipex-ipx-mini-pci-to-n-female-bulkhead-pigtail-cable-extension-rg178?ref=tc2
Can you provide the link to the battery protection board you showed in the beginning with plugs on both ends, I can only find ones that need soldering.
Here there are! voltaicenclosures.etsy.com/listing/1421193059/10-li-ion-battery-protection-modules-pcm
Out of stock at the moment, but more on the way
Back in stock voltaicenclosures.etsy.com/listing/1421193059
One thing I've not seen addressed. All these Meshtastic boards came from some other use, I assume. What was that other use case?
Also, I assume because of the previous use case and the screwy Chinese sellers. There seems to always be something simple but very wrong with nearly every board sold. Either the antenna sucks, controls are flakey. You have to source parts from multiple places to get a fully working system in an enclosure. I realize this is all kind of kit stuff. But still, you'd think someone would put a reasonable kit together? Or a not screwy solution.
These are IoT devices and are heavily used for this, including commercial use. I've purchased about 40 boards at this point and not had a single issue with any of them. RAK sells complete kits ready to go with solar for commercial use, but they're commercial use prices that people who want to use them for Meshtastic would be unwilling to pay.
Sadly Etsy is expensive. Delivery charges are often the cost of the product and sometimes more to the UK.
do you need a pcb for each battery in the unit?
No. Just one.
Is it possible to internet link a mesh device over the built in WiFi?
You can do this with MQTT
Is there a max Ethernet cable length that can be used for this application? Or can it be however long?
Max Ethernet cable length is about 320 feet before it starts seeing losses
Also, I should have the next installment of the TinySA series of videos this week!
@@The_Comms_Channel oh ok, perfect. Way longer than I was expecting. Thanks. 👍🏼
@@The_Comms_Channel awesome! Can’t wait. I love channels like this. My background is mech eng focused so I don’t really have any experience with this kind of stuff but really wanted to make my own mesh network. Having someone who knows exactly what to do explain each step is greatly appreciated. Going to finally build your solar setup for the roof. Thanks again. 👊🏼
Could you not just power with USB-C. Rak has a module accepting higher voltage for power or maybe i misunderstood
USB cables have a more limited distance than Ethernet
Discord link not working
Anyone have a (rough) price of comms channel solar node vs Standard Build just power POE node?
Rough price for my solar node was a little over 100. But I 3d printed a few items.
i wonder if chines citizens could use this to communicate with each other without big brother government getting involved. could be a good tool for organization. food for thought.
They are truely in a spy v spy kinda situation
Chinese citizens are so closely monitored that if they buy this stuff, their government will start watching them more closely. (Likely also true in USA)
Imagine using POE on a device made for worst case / disaster times. trust me if you have no power, internet, you also have no POE
The PoE box is battery powered.
Did you even watch the video?
@@The_Comms_Channel yes i did, are trying to now defend the use of a battery backup POE switch? what happens when that runs out.
How bout make real world sh!t people could use that will be using these things when sh!t hits the fan, like explaining to them that even a cheap taken apart solar garden light can power these and keep them powered for pennies.
how bout those kinds of setups that will matter come d-day.
while your tinkering with them as fun most people that will buy these are buying them for very specific reasons and not for ever day use when everything on the planet is all fine and dandy.
It'll run over a month on the PoE battery backup.
I've done a whole series of videos on solar powered versions of this. Maybe try taking a look at my other videos before commenting.
Are you seriously complaining about the PoE setup and talking about a garden light setup in the same comment? 😂
what screws did you use to affix the antenna mount to the box???
The enclosure comes with mounting hardware. I used the screws from that to mount the antenna mount
@@The_Comms_Channel hmm mine wont grab for some reason
Weird. Too big or too small?
@@The_Comms_Channel the screws are too small