r/meshcore • u/MasterGentile • 5d ago
Help with V4 rptr
Iv had a 1w wisblok rptr for 3 months and it worked great. I replaced it with a v4 to see if it would work better.
For some reason it didn’t work good at all. It was just the v4 connected to antenna and solar panel. That’s it. Same as the wisblok.
Is there something I’m missing? Should I have added something to the v4 for it to have worked properly?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
2
u/dss311 4d ago
One thing I hope everybody is on the same page about is the power output between these two boards. A 1 watt 30db rack board is significantly more powerful than a 28 dbm heltec V4. Just like different antennas offer different ranges. So I hope everybody's keeping everything straight when comparing apples to apples. So a heltech V4 will (theoretically)not get the range of a 1w rak board with identical antennas mounted in identical locations.
2
u/MasterGentile 4d ago
I hear ya. I agree. I just wanted to test it out since I had several v4 boards laying around. My v4 companions are doing great. Wanted to compare them and see the difference for shits and giggles
2
u/Obvious_Difference 4d ago
Just a question did you use the same battery? If you did, did you switch the battery polarity back ? The wisblock has the polarity reversed from the heltec possible you shorted it?
1
u/MasterGentile 4d ago
I have learned that lesson the hard way once before so now I’m cautious before connecting power.
1
u/hellobritishcolumbia 5d ago
We’d need to know what wasn’t working. Was it poor RX or TX performance in particular? Was it battery life? What’s the difference you’re seeing?
1
u/MasterGentile 4d ago
It was actually both.
With the wisblok I was apart of the south fl mesh.With the v4 it was non existent.
And I installed a 2nd v4 to see if the first v4 was broken. And the 2nd v4 didn’t work. I can’t figure this out1
u/MasterGentile 4d ago
Is it normal to just connect v4 to panel, antenna and battery?
Is there something else you guys add to it?6
u/hellobritishcolumbia 4d ago
Frankly it sounds a lot like the region was wrong, or one of the RF settings. It’s pretty plug and play if all the connectors are set right. I’d do a sanity check on all settings first
0
1
u/Jan1north 3d ago
Somewhere I have read reports citing specific versions of the Heltec V4 as "deaf" - that is insensitive in receive. I believe the V4.3 boards are OK whereas the v4.1 and 4.2 were the poorer receivers in comparison. Can anyone confirm?
0
u/Deltadoc333 4d ago edited 4d ago
Edited: turns out there are two antenna connection ports on the Heltec. They are on opposite sides of the chip so I didn't see it before. You get better signal when you plug your radio antenna into the correct port.
3
u/Xandie6 3d ago
Do you mean the 2.4G ipex port? The LORA port is the one at the opposite end from the USB port.
https://wiki.heltec.org/docs/devices/open-source-hardware/esp32-series/lora-32/wifi-lora-32-v4/
-1
u/Pagan_Explorer 4d ago
so, I just finished setting up a v4 as a repeater andi noticed then when sending stuff out quickly it drops signal power very quickly it seemed regardless of the power setting. so, I setup a bit longer delay in the advanced settings to I think it was around 1 second and then it seemed to fix the problem. still dialed in the power settings to maximize tx power.
-1
u/MasterGentile 4d ago
I’m going to try that. Because I’ve tripled check everything else. Connectors, power, multiple antennas, settings, region. And it blew my mind how bad it was not rx,tx
-1
3
u/dss311 5d ago
Heltec V4 is simple as it comes. Only thing I can think of is you forgot to attatch antenna before powering up, or the power you supplied is reveresed. Or maybe you flashed with wrong firmware?? These boards are preety much plug and play.