AustinMesh

We celebrated our partnership in #stem with @AustinISD this Friday. Learn more at austinmesh.org/partners/

Simple Experiment - if the Voltaic Systems V75 battery totally dies, will it turn back on and reboot the #meshtastic device once the sun comes back? The answer is yes. This is the simplest possible Meshtastic repeater setup and it eliminates all of the battery/solar management.

4th Austin Mesh meeting in the books. Come join us at the next one in February as we set up a solar powered #meshtastic wireless mesh network.

Building a solar powered birdhouse #meshtastic repeater

@Will_W_Welker It's my favorite too- I carried it every day for 2 weeks and it's very small and the battery last all day. Range is about half a mile.

@AustinMeshOrg Very nice. The T-Echo has become my favorite personal unit. I should try this as well.👍

Worlds cheapest #meshtasfic repeater: $80. It's just a $13 solar panel and a $67 Lilygo T-Echo. The USB connection between the two was just waterproofed with some Proxicast silicone tape.

@Will_W_Welker Yeah it's just an SMA connector so you could screw on any 915mhz SMA antenna. But be aware that the stock antenna has a "skirt" so a different antenna won't look as nice.

@AustinMeshOrg Can you get a longer antenna for these?

I just put the solar panel at the edge of the porch and left the Liligo sitting on the coffee table out of the weather. For the past 2 weeks it's stayed alive in the Texas heat. Next step is to epoxy on a cheap box for the echo and put it up in a tree.

Range testing #meshtastic by the White House today.

Join us this Friday for the first weekly #meshtastic check in. #meshtasticfriday

Got MQTT set up on #meshtastic - now Austin Mesh is connected to nodes all around the world!

Join the Meshtastic twitter group! #meshtastic twitter.com/i/communities/…

Bad news - my “poor man’s radio tower” - painter’s pole with paracord guy wires - failed last night during the thunderstorm. Antenna mount also failed on the case. Radio is still operating and has 81% battery. I wouldn’t recommend this tower design. #meshtastic #solarpunk

Also using stainless steel cable ties instead of plastic. Wrapped the USB connector in Proxicast self-sealing silicone tape. Planning to add Kapton tape to the connection between the USB-C cable and the board (should keep it in place despite wide temperature swings).

New #meshtastic solar node V2: now I’m including a 2nd 6watt solar panel which is USB connected to the main board. When the battery is fully dead and the sun comes up the power from the larger solar panel will restart the radio. No more dead nodes.

Did you know the world record for the longest distance achieved by Meshtastic was broke last Sunday? By 40 km! In a pretty unique way too! This led to quite the excitement for those of us following along in the discord server. Check out the details here: meshtastic.discourse.group/t/practical-ra…

Good news! Austin Mesh works at Cidercade!

@mrc7001 I’ve got one on a 30 foot pole with the solar panel facing southwest - battery level (2000 mAh) never gets below 20% - it’s been raining for days and here’s what it looks like at 10pm:

How to build a #solar powered #meshtastic repeater from scratch. Full video in replies below.

Good news - the Austin Mesh #meshtastic wireless mesh network works at ABGB now. #solarpunk

Full video on TikTok: tiktok.com/t/ZTRKy4QaT/

Full video on instagram: instagram.com/reel/CsIDjSTPE…