Codes now here. Still didnt get all that much time to work on the hop logic. ITS VERY EXPERIMENTAL. DO NOT USE. PROBABLY FOREVER.

It was a fun proof of concept thats for sure.

https://yuno.chrisco.me/git/Experiments/dual_mesh_repeater

Im sure someone else can fork and play around with it at some point. It makes a LOT of assumptions (US based, longfast on MT. etc…)

And the screen needs work.

And the hop logic. It just blindly forwards the packet. No reduction in hops. So yeah dont use it. But it was fun to try and see if I could get it working. And it did!

Honestly I dont know how putting more nodes up could ever hurt the network? I mean imagine ALL meshtastic and meshcore repeaters suddenly could do both. It would mean a 20/30% more coverage for meshtastic and like 1000% for meshcore right off the bat. (meshcore has less hardware running around than meshtastic).

That being said im VERY new to developing anything on the heltec/meshtastic/meshcore stuff. So its all very alpha software.

Once I get the hops working ill publish. Its not pretty. And I dont want to be the forever maintainer on this project, I got other things going on. But its a good forkable project right now.

Thanks for the support!

Will do!

Im hoping to deal with that with #2. Worst case i just put a bit of a delay, wait for two or more, remove. Or if it doesnt hear anything them send. The hop logic isnt there yet. I litterally just made it today. Im going to get the rtlsdr set up and do some testing.

Im not saying your wrong but that design and that spefic fan is over a decade old now.

It might just be the brand/specific motor that people get on the market.

Get a heat gun. You can see it happening in real time. Or not if its not.

Its good not to trust me, as I didnt put any real data on what we did here. But it should be self evident if you make the build,. run the system for a while, then check the temperature. You dont want to strap a ton of flammable material near an engine that could get hot. Also if we were to do real science, I bet its because certain fans are older/have less oil/etc…which causes a buildup of heat.

In my area, we have annual fires that get pretty bad. Add in ag related pollution, allergies, etc…and air quality is almost always unhealthy.

Our local makerspace has partnered up with our local asthma collaborative to make custom PM sensors here: https://www.sjvair.com/ (code is here: https://github.com/sjvair)

We have tried out a couple of designs and had actual science done on which custom air purifiers did the best. One of the members rigged up a airtight area and pushed smoke in. Got a couple of readings, then did the same test with the air purifier designs. I think we tested close to 10 different designs including some air purifiers you get from local stores.
We found a couple that work well.

https://github.com/opennukit/Nukit-Open-Air-Purifier/ is a good one.

The local makerspace did some work and found a design that worked well. It was 2nd best at air purification but was super cheap.
One that we improvised was the following:

3d printed brackets, a filter, and some activated carbon and you have a good air purifier. Family uses these for white noise and air purification at night. It works wonders! The fan is 20$ at any wallmart, the filters are dirt cheap. And you can get huge rolls of activated carbon on amazon. No need to over complicate things, just bracket everything on, let it sit for a good 3-4 months, then look and see if anything needs replacing.

One note of caution, some of the huge box designs like the one OP is suggesting was having trouble with the engine overheating. Most of these box fans use the air to cool off the internals. If it doesn’t get that for many hours, it can start overheating. Just check after running whatever solution you come up with and make sure the engine isn’t getting hot.

I agree. I think guides like the above can showcase a bit of what each project can do and how to do it. But retriculum took me about a week or so to get working. For almost no nodes.

But I was able to chat with images for the first time over the mesh…so that was really neat!

It looks like he used meshcore with a lot of the testing. I wonder how this would have changed if he used meshtastic?

From @adingbatponder@fosstodon.org over at mastodon. I saw a lot of good info all over lora.

Yep. Only when direct line of sight have I been successful. And sometimes it still fails for some reason. Like in the same room. Might be the heltecs or something.

Like I can see the signal going out via RTLSDR but then nothing sometimes comes back. Not sure why.

Haha yeah its a bit much. Still a decent video. Does the community care if i makeva new title for the post? I usually keep it the same to respect the maker of the video.

When did it get forked?

Also to me this is def a hobby and would have to get MUCH better at the hop/messaging system to come close to competing with anything. I liked the video for showcasing some of the capabilities. But the title is a bit silly.

I usually just get some cheap helteks (last I checked 2 for less than 50?) when people first start out. Then get the other stuff later.

The frequency and power these things transmit at is VERY low. Think trees andleaves can get in the way of signals getting from device to device.

I agree with @roofuskit@lemmy.world its probably lone of sight. There are two ways i have tested in the past:

1. Get another meshtastic device and walk around the neighboorhood.
2. Test with an rtlsdr (usb dongle) that can pick up radio and “see” the signal strength. This one may be overkill for most.

GL!

1W is not enough for any emergency system. I would NOT rely on meshtastic when there is already ham radio stuff out there that works. Trees, walls and other such already block the signal and “jamming” can occur when an air conditioner turns on.

In a real emergency there are frequencies (depending on where you live) that will give you more info at MUCH stronger signals. Its their job already.

Theres a fantastic video that does over everything involved here: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/transmitting-and-receiving-meshtastic-with-sdr/

and another one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1VgO1OZWbs

You can take a RTLSDR (<50$) and receive meshtastic/lora signals. Then put it though some software to “see” it. Its fascinating. The logo is actually what lora/meshtatic looks like on the spectrum.

I was able to reproduce with an old RTLSDR V3.

To be honest, theres nothing magical about meshtastic compared to say ham radio and meshnets. Its just using a technical amature band at a whisper (less than 1W usually) to transmit. If you want to be really technical, all you would need is a very cheap RTLSDR, some tiny transmitter, and a computer in order to reproduce “open hardware” for meshtastic. GNU-radio would help with that should anyone go that route. Its hard (to me) to do all of it, but I was able to get most of the way there about a year ago.

Yeah meshcore already has a char room style for nodes. It works really well. I could see tastic stealing the best ideas from it.

Awesome find!

Maybe cross post to !videos@lemmy.world for a bit more exposure? IDK.

For some reason that link is not loading for me.
EDIT Now it is.