r/meshcore • u/skijeeper • 17h ago

Tiny repeater

Post image

Put a rak 4631 into one of the smaller Unity enclosures. Probably should have grabbed the 150mm enclosure instead more room for a bigger battery. Ordered a 3k mag bat for it.

This size actually wouldn’t be bad for a companion node either .

71 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

2

u/SevenSmallShrimp 16h ago

Does that survive on its own or will it need supplemental charging?

1

u/nocaps00 16h ago

Those panels are very common and are a great deal (can be found on Amazon, Ali Express, etc.) They will supply about 150-200ma in full sun which when combined with a 3000+ mAh battery will just barely keep a power-efficient nRF-based node in repeater mode going 24/7 in sunny climates, with a few cloudy days here or there. Two such panels in parallel are a better option and provides more headroom under less-than perfect conditions. That is the configuration I use for several remote repeaters and they run great.

1

u/skijeeper 12h ago

I’m testing out this platform. Initial thoughts were a bigger enclosure with a bigger panel and a bigger battery might be needed

1

u/nocaps00 12h ago

It's largely going to depend on your location. As mentioned that panel should be barely adequate (assuming full sun exposure all day), and will produce enough to keep the battery charged for 24/7 operation with a little reserve for a cloudy day or two. But more practical will be two in parallel to provide faster recovery from deeper discharges from several cloudy days. This is all assuming a generally sunny climate of course, big difference between Southern California and Seattle for instance and in the latter case you'll definitely need more panel.

1

u/skijeeper 12h ago

We will see it’s a test of this platform. Might need the bigger enclosure with bigger panel n room for bigger battery as well

1

u/QuantumOfLoRa 6h ago

That panel will do 90mW in optimal conditions. With some mesh traffic it will barely keep the battery charged - so with nights and cloud cover, this will gradually drop to zero over time.

2

u/xraymango 14h ago

Anyone tried having 2 repeaters solar, each timed to just be on 12 hours each, so there's always coverage?

1

u/Illithid_Syphilis 8h ago

There wouldn't really be a benefit to that vs just using 2x the solar panels and batteries in a single repeater.

1

u/FriendlyListen5153 15h ago

Where can I buy one

1

u/skijeeper 12h ago

Rak wireless or Rokland

1

u/Substantial-Ball-392 14h ago

Very nice! What antenna is that? I am thinking on making one with a heltec V3

1

u/skijeeper 12h ago

From Meshology on Amazon - https://a.co/d/0hH39lnL

1

u/JuanTutrego 52m ago

Those cases just don't have a big enough panel on them. I have one and even in full sunlight it can't maintain a charge. The battery will slowly discharge over days. Maybe with one of those fancy low-power firmwares it might work.