Meshtastic

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Does anyone know of a way to make a solar (no battery) meshtastic node? (piefed.social)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by mesamunefire@piefed.social to c/meshtastic@mander.xyz

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Ive had a number of these devices. And the number 1 thing that fails is the battery. It might also be where I am at. We have 110+F days that cause spicy pillows or failures after a year or so.

So I was wondering, is there a way to make a "daytime only" node that turns on where theres enough sunlight to power the thing, and then turns off where there is not enough sunlight?

I figure I could just get a 5V solar panel and hook it up directly to one of the nodes. I'm just nervous that it will under voltage the device over the long run if that makes sense.

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[–] PetteriPano@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A bit of a buffer battery is good.

I've got the opposite problem of lithium batteries freezing. But three NiMH batteries in series is close enoigh to drop-in. They're ok with cold, maybe also heat?

Or, capacitor to even out the load. Or a super-capacitor if you want to last all night long. They'll consume everything to charge up from empty, though.

[–] bizarroland@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

I would say a small bank of supercapacitors and like an inexpensive 10 watt USB-C solar panel from ali Express would be a pretty good way to accomplish this. Supercapacitors, if they're protected from rain and UV, will last a very long time and from what I understand are not vastly affected by environmental temperatures.