Costs of building a solar powered gateway

dieselnutjob
Tue, 14 May 2024 11:16:38 +0000
Raspberry Pi Gateways

Hi
I’m a total newbie and just been playing with Meshtastic so far, but, I think TheThings is maybe what I really want to play with.
But the problem is that I don’t think I’ll be able to reliably hit a community TheThings gateway from here.
So maybe I should build one.
I live in a reasonably flat bit of London and because we have a loft conversion there’s a flat roof that I can easily access right at the top of the house. I could just sit it on the roof and bolt an antenna to the existing TV antenna pole.
However I don’t really want to punch holes in my house to run power up there.
So I’m thinking maybe build a pi / iC880a and put it in a water proof plastic box up there? I have a spare car battery sitting around so maybe power it from that with a solar panel? There is already a WiFi AP in the loft so it could connect to the that.
I’m wondering what kind of solar panel I’m going to need and how much it would cost? London is often cloudy and doesn’t get a lot of sun during the winter.

A side question. Is it (even theoretically) possible for a TheThings gateway to also, and simultaneously, be a Meshtastic node? running both stacks in parallel?

thanks

12 posts - 5 participants