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Why Build a LoRa Meshtastic Outdoor Solar Node?
A lot of LoRa users want the ability to mount their device outside in order to benefit from a higher elevation, or more sunlight for a solar panel to provide a charge to the batteries. Anytime you are making a device to use outside, you want to look at some kind of enclosure with an IP (Ingres Protection) rating. I can highly recommend this Electrical Waterproof Custom Junction Box that so many others have used with great success. This box has plenty of room inside, is IP67 rated, and has a nice removable mounting board inside to make mounting your device and supporting hardware easy.
Solar Power for Your Device
Since most LoRa devices don’t use much power, it is easy to power them using a small battery and solar panel. My first LoRa/Meshtastic device build used an exterior grade, IP67-rated case, with a 12V solar panel to recharge two 18650 batteries. Because the solar panel I already had on hand was a 12V 20w solar panel, and the WisBlock uses 5V, I also had to purchase a buck converter which is a device that converts one DC voltage (up or down) to another DC voltage. It would be better to simply start with a 5v panel that produces 5 or 6 watts, which is enough as long as you are not using GPS. On my unit, when using the GPS module, it was draining faster than it was recharging, at least while the panel was just thrown in my window for testing. Outside, with a better line of sight and angle, it would have been a different story.
A LoRa Meshtastic outdoor-mounted solar-powered node has some potential advantages over an indoor or mobile-use node, including the possibility to mount it higher so the antenna’s line-of-sight covers more distance, and so there are no obstructions that might block a solar panel used to charge the batteries.
There are many roles a LoRa device can fill. To see more information about the various roles a LoRa Meshtastic node can be used for, see the Meshtastic Documentation on Configurations here. For this discussion we will only get into the 3 basic roles: Client, Repeater, and Router.
| Device Role | Description | Best Uses |
|---|---|---|
| CLIENT | App connected or stand alone messaging device. Rebroadcasts packets when no other node has done so. | General use for individuals needing to communicate over the Meshtastic network with support for client applications. |
| REPEATER | Infrastructure node for extending network coverage by always rebroadcasting packets once with minimal overhead. Not visible in Nodes list. | Best positioned in strategic locations to maximize the network’s overall coverage. Device is not shown in topology. |
| ROUTER | Infrastructure node for extending network coverage by always rebroadcasting packets once. Visible in Nodes list. | Best positioned in strategic locations to maximize the network’s overall coverage. Device is shown in topology. |