Finished up my first solar build. It went decent. I based if off Austin Mesh post.
Here’s the dude! There were several challenges that I had to deal with, and some decision I made as well.
General hardware I used:
- solar panel 12w $30 Soshine amazon
- battery Voltaic V75 $80 here
- 8 dBi antenna $11 aliexpress
- RAK Wireless meshtastic board $35
- IPEX to n-type 12in pigtail amazon
Some build notes as I was going along:
I’m referring to these pics I snapped as I was going through this process. I wanted the box to be able to breath. Finding some reasonable vents was harder than I thought. I ended up with a handful of these overpriced buggers at $5 a pop from polycase.com.
I got this cable gland, also too expensive, $8 amazon, that would accommodate 6 real small wires. I found out immediately the heavy plastic enclosure I snapped up at Home Depot (too expensive), was too thick for the threaded part on the gland. So I had to get creative, and very careful, with some of my wood forstner bits to make it work.
After that I promptly drilled holes in both the side and the top! Damn it. I used roofing screws on the top, scooted their rubber washer plus some hot glue to be in immediate contact with the plastic case. On the side, I just left those stainless screws alone <shrug>.
I chose a long pigtail off amazon so there were minimal connections between the RAK radio and the exterior antenna. I’m sure that little 0.6mm wire isn’t rated for outdoor use. It may have been better to use one of these short ones, pass that through the plastic case, slam that down with the metal washer, then point the antenna down. Box on top. The idea of putting a hole in the top of your box so you can mount the antenna upwards and gain 1.5ft more from where ever you’re at seems a bit silly. So I used a drip loop type where my poorly guarded holes were on the bottom: the gland nut.
Of course the full USB head from the solar panel wouldn’t fit through a glad nut that can accommodate 0.6mm wires. So I cut the usb wire, passed the four wires through two of the available gland nut openings, and re-soldered the connections with shrink wrap on the inside. The recent freestyle drone hobby really came through there with soldering and shrink wrapping stuff.
The mounting hardware that came with the solar panel seemed decent, but also dissimilar metals, generally as cheap as possible. I used this 45 deg pvc pipe and a bolt. I had read that these boxes can get hot, and that kind of stuff will kill a battery. So I wanted the solar panel to shade the box when the sun was directly overhead: the most solar-hot part of the day (seems like it’s actually hottest around here in the afternoon evening).
The battery barely fit in the enclosure. I’ve seen many people with that issue. Now that I know the general dimensions of solar node #2 I can be a little pickier with the enclosure dimensions and see if I can realize my dreams of only a hole or two, all on the bottom.
I think those are about all the note I have for this one. Hope some of this helps inform you for your build and reminds you to check for compatibility.
