Started looking at standalone node ideas and came across these STEM toys. Each set includes materials to build 2 units, and the community has already done a great job with porting Meshtastic support. They’re a bit pricey to buy direct, and v2.1 is redesigned to make repurposing more difficult, but I was able to pick up this pair of v2.0s off eBay for less than $40.
Stock it has a few known issues, mainly the radio. OOTB these cannot operate on LF, Medium Slow or faster is necessary. There is documentation in the GitHub discussion to make LF operation possible, but my area is switching to MF in a week so I’m just going to not worry about that for now.
It also operates using 3 AAAs, with a USBC port that can provide power but only during programming only be used for programming. It cannot supply charge to whatever batteries are used, but it can be done. Unfortunately, even with the screen off the batteries drain +40% overnight. So to avoid changing batteries every other day, I’ll be adding some pieces to it. I plan to add a 1200mAh LiPo battery and a LiPo Amigo Pro from PiShop to supply power. This could definitely be done a few different ways but I wanted to keep things clean and simple with jtag.
Using the GitHub discussion for this device, I’m also going to look at adding a GPS unit through the 4 header pins on the right side. For ease, I’m planning to attach a ublox M10 with the pigtail crimped for a 4 pin DuPont connector. Apparently these have no power mgmt for GPS, so it’ll be always on. With this approach I figure I can save battery by just unplugging the GPS when necessary.
To keep everything clean and better protected a friend and I are going to modify this case/backplate to fit the LiPo and add a hole for the USBC on the Amigo and a place for the GPS wires to feed into the battery bump for safe storage of that board.
Learning a new “bummer “ about these as standalone devices.
All menus only give “reply with preset” options (unfortunately you can’t add new canned msgs) but you can just start typing to send a msg. Those msgs only go to your primary channel by default. Makes it very difficult to reply in private channels. Though using the back button to send a preset gives an option to pick a channel or node as the recipient.
If the app starts showing its channels (I’m guessing the devices showing on the node but not the app is a bug) I’ll probably try swapping MediumFast to the secondary channel. I’d rather the default msg destination not be everyone, but being able to read the public channel could be beneficial
I’m jealous of everybody who can mesh. I live in a dead zone, nothing for about 15km.
Me too.
Check out reticulum
I’ve actually turned some friends on to it, and even though they’re within a mile or two from me they are completely cut off bc of hills/ridges in the area. It’s definitely unfortunately useless if the right infrastructure isn’t around.
Does your area’s geography allow for you to get a node to play router or client base hoisted up high enough to reach anyone else?
Sadly, no. I’d need to get a serious antenna onto the church tower and I don’t see that happening.
