cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/56217
A Meshtastic node has been one of the toys of the moment over the last year, and since they are popular with radio amateurs there’s a chance you’ll already live within range of at least one. They can typically run from a lithium-ion or li-po battery, so it’s probable that like us you’ve toyed with the idea of running one from a solar panel. It’s something we have in common with [saveitforparts], whose experiments with a range of different solar panels form the subject of a recent video.
He has three different models: one based around a commercial solar charger, another using an off-the-shelf panel, and a final one using the panel from a solar garden light. As expected the garden light panel can’t keep an ESP32 with a radio going all day, but the other two manage even in the relatively northern climes of Alaska.
As a final stunt he puts one of the nodes out on a rocky piece of the southern Alaskan coastline, for any passing hacker to find. It’s fairly obviously in a remote place, but it seems passing cruise ships will be within its range. We just know someone will take up his challenge and find it.
From Blog – Hackaday via this RSS feed
Essentially, its a cute idea but if you want these things to have any kind of longevity you need to beef up the battery and solar. I dont care if its a pi zerobsipping .5 watts any cloud cover will kill those things easy, and the alaskian darkness for many months of they year would be harsh on the solar panel generation.
Almost no mestastic or reticulum nodes use raspberrypis outside of one or two outliers.
faaaar less
The Rak and T114 boards are in the fraction of watt range. 10,000mah would last 1-2 months without the sun, and be fully charged in three to four days of sunlight.
Reticulum and the like would benefit from normal networking hardware as they do provide a lan connection, but they can just as easily mesh together without it. Your server stack can be in a building with dedicated power while still sending packets to whoever miles away via the mesh. The mesh doesn't host, it just passes along.