Our solar powered repeaters are based on lessons learned from more than five iterations of design. Details of the previous attempts here. We used this exact setup at HacDC and it has worked flawlessly without any external intervention for more than six months.
Parts List
| Item | Product Name | Cost | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solar Panel | Soshine 12W | $30 | Amazon or AliExpress |
| Battery | Voltaic Systems V25 | $44 | Amazon or Volatic Systems |
| Rak Board | RAK Meshtastic Kit | $37 | Rokland or Amazon |
| Antenna Connector | IPEX to N Type Female | $4 | Rokland or Amazon |
| Antenna | 915 MHz 3 dBi N-Female | $39 | Rokland |
| Box | ABS Box with mounting tabs, 158mm x 90mm x 46mm | $9 | Amazon or AliExpress |
| Drain Plug | VENT-PS1YBK-N8001 | $5 | Amazon or Mouser |
| USB Cable Pass-Through | 3/4 NPT Cable Gland | $2 | Amazon |
| Antenna Wrap | Proxicast | $2 | Rokland or Amazon |
| Coax Cable | 3′ KMR400 N Female to N Male | $13 | Rokland or Amazon |
| $185 |
Assembly Instructions
- Tools needed:
- Laptop
- Drill
- Stepped Drill bits to drill a 1/4″ hole and a 1-1/4″ hole
- Philips screwdriver
- Knife
- Lay out all your parts on a table
- Drill holes into the ABS plastic box at the bottom for the drain plug and the cable pass-through gland. The “bottom” of the box will be the smallest side. It’s best to put both of these hols at the bottom so water drains past them.
- Install the drain plug. Finger-tight is fine
- Install the cable pass-through gland. Finger-tight is fine.
- Connect the provided bluetooth antenna to the RAK chip. Make sure you read the tiny writing on the RAK chip so you connect it to the right IPEX connector. Just push it in slowly and firmly and you’ll feel it pop into place.
- Connect the IPEX to N Type Female cable to the RAK chip’s IPEX antenna connector. Push it in slowly and firmly and you’ll feel it pop into place.
- Connect the IPEX to N Type Female cable to the coax cable
- Connect the antenna to the coax coax cable
- Pull the USB cable from the solar panel through the pass-through gland
- Pull the coax through the pass-through gland
- Waterproofing the cables:
- Hold the ends of the two cables together so their ends are equal.
- Pull the cables into the box so the ends come into the box by about 4 inches (100mm)
- Note the position of where the cables will be in the gland
- Now pull out the cables and do one wrap of proxicast around each cable individually at the point that they will be in the middle of the glad
- Put both cables together so the single wraps of proxicast mush together.
- Do three wraps of proxicast around both cables over the existing wraps of proxicast
- Pull the cables back into the box so the wraps of proxicast are positioned inside the gland
- Screw down the gland – the rubber seal of the gland will compress the proxicast and make it watertight
- Put the battery in the box
- Flashing
- Connect the USB cable of the RAK chip to your laptop
- Using a Chrome browser follow the instructions here: flasher.meshtastic.org
- Connect the USB cable from the RAK to the charging port of the battery
- Configuring the meshtastic settings
- Download the Meshtastic app to your phone – I’m using iPhone for this example
- Connect to the chip via Bluetooth – default PIN is 123456
- Settings -> Lora -> Region: United States, Save, wait for device to reboot and reconnect via the Bluetooth menu
- Settings -> User -> Set Long Name and Short Name, Save, wait for device to reboot and reconnect via the Bluetooth menu
- Settings -> Channels-> Primary Channel -> Toggle on “Uplink Enabled” and “Downlink Enabled” to allow for MQTT traffic to flow over this device, set Approximate Location to 0.5 miles
- If the device is in a very good location, Settings -> Device-> Device Role -> “Repeater” (otherwise leave it as “Client”), Save, wait for device to reboot and reconnect via the Bluetooth menu
- Settings -> Position -> Set “Broadcast Interval” to “Five Minutes”, Disable “Smart Position”, put “Device GPS” as “Disabled”, enable “Fixed Position”, Save, wait for device to reboot and reconnect via the Bluetooth menu
- Settings -> MQTT -> select “Enabled,” select “MQTT Client Proxy,” select “Encryption Enabled,” Select “Map Report” as “Enabled,” Set Approximate Location to 0.5 miles, set Root Topic to “msh/US/DC,” Save, wait for device to reboot and reconnect via the Bluetooth menu
- Screw the lid on the box
- And voilà – Bob’s your uncle!