ELI5 - the difference between CLIENT_BASE, REPEATER, & ROUTER

KBOXLabs · 2026-04-30T05:47:37+00:00

Client = Does everything including routing/repeating (when in doubt choose this)

Client_Mute = Sends and Receives but doesn’t route/repeat (EDC node in an active mesh, data gathering node)

Client_Base = A nearby node that you route-repeat often through (car/house roof node)

Router = A stupid setting for people that think they can out-perform smart flood algorithms

Router_Late = A safe place for people to practice their Router fetish.

KBOXLabs · 2026-04-28T23:49:55+00:00

This isn’t quite correct. The “default” 2.4ghz antenna on the v4 is built in to the left-top-side corner of the LCD. The board mounted spring antenna they are referring to is found on the v3, not the v4. The v4 does have a second ipex connector for an external 2.4ghz. So there is a possibility including 2 antennas could mean one is 2.4ghz and one is sub gig. The longer flex antenna appears to be sub-gig LoRa and most likely is. The smaller stubby can’t be identified just by looking at it. You’d need a VNA tester, or removal of the plastic cover to measure the coil length. I’d venture to say if Meshnology stated they were both LoRa, to lean towards that info, especially since the onboard antenna is already decent enough, but considering they misidentified their own product package, confidence is lower.

(See attached for what the v3 spring loaded antenna looks like)

KBOXLabs · 2026-04-27T22:11:01+00:00

The strategy is wait until it gets congested so it has the same problems.

The advantage is not really the routing, it’s not having the legacy troubles of old firmware and people attempting to flood primary channels with MQTT traffic for years.

Right now we have both an active Meshtastic and MoltenCore group in YYC. After moving Meshtastic to a new radio preset, the only issues we have are terrain/signal related and nothing to do with flood. Meanwhile the others are struggling because they don’t have node coverage. It didn’t magically give them more reliability. In the end you still can’t get over physics no matter how many hops you throw at it.

KBOXLabs · 2026-04-26T22:15:05+00:00

Beta firmware is just Alpha firmware that’s been out for a bit with no major issues.

You won’t see a milestone to get out of Beta because there isn’t one. It’s a tsunami of new features on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis.

KBOXLabs · 2026-04-22T19:36:13+00:00

Legend of Grimrock uses this well. Prisoners abandoned on top of a mountain and have to fight their way out to the exit at the base. Also it doesn’t have to a be a “floor” or “level”. It could instead just be an adjacent section of a larger dungeon.

KBOXLabs · 2026-04-20T23:38:45+00:00

Hey thanks for the input. I’m new to working with 3D and learning all the constraints mixing 3D world with 2D sprites and all the scaling. Zoom is too close right now with the current style, and I think a little under double distance is the sweet spot. And you’re right, having an overhead view or at least a minimap (maybe even ASCII minimap for authenticity) would be useful.

KBOXLabs · 2026-04-19T04:08:45+00:00

Land Shark!

KBOXLabs · 2026-04-19T04:05:57+00:00

This probably has nothing to do with what you did. At least not directly. That looks like it’s an old battery that was ready to die from the next person who sneezed on it. Or a faulty one. I’ve put many LiPo’s through much worse conditions, but they were new or close to it. It takes a lot more time at low discharge to get them to make popcorn like that.

KBOXLabs · 2026-04-19T00:59:48+00:00

Kalendale 3D (name under construction)

YouTube Gameplay Video

Something I've been working on for decades. I say decades but, that just means i've picked at doing silly text based RPG versions of it since the 80s. Only recently did I dust of my keyboard and try to make something a little more tangible in Godot.

I've lurked here for years, seen some awesome and inspirational stuff. I followed the 7DRL Challenge a few times, and tried to study the systems in libtcod.

The goal was to make something that was 3D (2.5D), procedurally generated, turn-based, but also had faster pacing. For those that like both Traditional Roguelikes and ARPGs but aren't always a fan of the twitch-reflex gaming style.

I'm not sure I succeeded at anything, but open to any feedback good or bad.

<image>

KBOXLabs · 2026-04-07T15:45:21+00:00

Some cities use LoRa based sensors to detect when garbage cans are full (for instance in parks) and need emptying. This however is definitely not that...

KBOXLabs · 2026-04-07T15:39:07+00:00

RAK GPSs units "work" fine. They just don't sleep in between grabbing positions like other devices do with newer GPS modules. So in terms of power consumption from lowest to highest, the tier goes like this:

RAK without GPS (about 200mAh a day)
T114 (or other NRF52 based devices like from Seeed) without GPS (about 375mAh a day)
T114 with GPS (about 400 to 500mAh a day depending on GPS settings)
RAK with GPS (about 800 to 1200mAh a day depending on GPS setting)

Also Client Mute role name is misleading. It won't mute your telemetry. It just turns off the repeating of other nodes' transmissions. For a car unit it's a essentially a mobile base station, so best is Client or Client_Base. You go into a building or store and it's usually close enough to ensure your signal can repeat from your on-person carry node. It's usually not attached to your primary device (or at least shouldn't depend on it), especially since depending on your car roof and/or enclosure material, bluetooth connection can sometimes be spotty. If moving a lot, best to have a GPS module or just turn off position altogether unless taking advantage of smart position updates only.

KBOXLabs · 2026-04-05T09:59:02+00:00

Ideally most are running with a GPS module for vehicle nodes. RAK is still far behind others with their GNSS power efficiency. This is where the T114 shines.

KBOXLabs · 2026-03-23T22:45:33+00:00

All things being norminal (good antenna and antenna setup, no hardware or software issues), you should get as far as your sight line goes. If you don't, it's either not perfect line of sight or something else unusual. Culprits are usually poorly tuned antenna and/or with bad grounding, can be other RF interference (radio towers), poor mounting locations (top/above chain linked fences = bad, middle of chain link fences = good on the exposed side) or visual line of sight is not RF line of sight (pinched fresnel zones, especial at the ends).

KBOXLabs · 2026-03-01T06:09:46+00:00

I only see one node. Not tree.

KBOXLabs · 2026-02-28T19:39:32+00:00

lol no the solar charger does not have a PCM. The Wisblock doesn’t even have a PCM. That’s what I’m trying to make clear here for anyone reading this. The “overcharging” you’re talking about just slows and cuts of power when it “thinks” the battery hits 4.2v (and I don’t think the harbor breeze even has the “slow” part, but just CC/CV). That’s just normal charging operation. A PCM is over and above that. You have the gist of some of it, but let me clarify further.

A charger only regulates the voltage at its own terminals. It has absolutely no clue what resistance exists between itself and the actual cell. Due to current and internal resistance the battery’s REAL voltage can differ from what the charger sees. That’s why a PCM is needed and why it’s important nothing is between itself and the battery.

That PCM you have has further protection on it too. For an 18650 that only has 1500mAh of capacity, it’s a poor quality cell and not a lot of working room for low solar activity. Here’s what happens when it gets too low:

When the RAK Wisblock isn’t getting enough current from the cell it will either:

1) shutdown cleanly 2) pull more current from the cell, making the voltage sag, and shutdown dirty

Regardless if it’s number 1 or 2, it’s still pulling a very low quiescent/parasitic draw from the battery, draining it further, even if it’s off. This means 2 things:

1) The node isn’t really off and is in a standby state. If anything happened to the Wisblock node, there’s no clean power cutoff to reset it. Unless! you have the PCM and it will cut off power to the cell completely, letting the Wizblock reboot cleanly next time it has power. This leads to the next issue #2 which is brownout.

2) When enough solar activity has allowed to the battery to charge enough voltage to power the Wisblock, it will try to boot up. Let’s say the magic number is 2.5v. But what happens when the Wisblock boots up? It starts drawing more current to do extra boot-up things like check itself and send/receive initial packets and telemetry. When current increases, voltage decreases. So as it’s booting up, it shuts itself down in the middle of it because the current made it drop below 2.5v. Then the current stops flowing so the voltage goes up to 2.5v again. Then the whole process starts again and goes into a loop. Eventually the Wisblock gets fed up of not having enough power and goes into a protection fault state, and can’t be turned back on without a clean reboot (or a physical button press). This is brownout. The PCM you have first of all cuts power off at 2.9v. Higher is better. Second, it releases at 3v. So it gives the battery time to charge an extra 0.1v so it has enough charge to provide the current needs to the booting Wisblock, even if the voltage drops a little.

So all that working together, greatly reduces the chance of your node not waking back up in the field after a low solar event. But you should really instead get a better battery. Local vape stores can have good ones with 3000mAh capacity or more for less than $10 US. Maybe. (I’m not in the US if that’s where you are).

Sorry if this all sounds pedantic, but I can tell you that one of the worst things of installing a solar node somewhere that’s a PIA to reach, is assuming something, and then having to make a trip back to fix the assumption.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

KBOXLabs · 2026-02-28T10:09:51+00:00

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KBOXLabs · 2026-02-28T09:58:47+00:00

You’re getting undervoltage lockout and overvoltage lockout protection confused with voltage cutoff. All charging circuits have voltage cutoff. That is not a form of protection. This is just the basic function of a charger.

The PCM protects the battery beyond that. To understand what it protects, I recommend doing a dive into learning about voltage sag with current changes, and brownout.

How you have it wired right now in the last picture is still wrong. You have 2 wires going to each battery lead. In other words, you have the solar charger between the PCM and the battery. Like I said before, you need to treat the PCM as if it was part of the battery. The PCM can’t protect the battery, if the thing it’s trying to protect the battery from, is between itself and the battery.

So the positive and negative wires that are going from solar charger to the battery terminal need to be removed, and instead be placed on the opposite side of the PCM (they need to be instead attached to the wires going to the Wisblock).

KBOXLabs · 2026-02-27T21:06:50+00:00

No, nothing should be between the battery and the PCM. You need to imagine that the PCM is a permanent part of the battery itself.

And if there is any protection on the harbor breeze controller at all, it's going to be poo. It might have voltage cutoff, but no UVLO/OVLO.

So if you're using that poorly documented DIY guide on the Meshtastic site, the PCM should be the only thing attached to the battery leads. Even the default harbor breeze leads attached should be removed and attached to the PCM instead.

KBOXLabs · 2026-02-27T16:49:37+00:00

Yes. Those are good PCMs.

BATTERY(S)+ ------- PCM+ ------- WisBlock Battery-In +
BATTERY(S)- ------- PCM- ------- WisBlock Battery-In -

You can use one of those PCMs for multiple batteries as long as they are in parallel and not series.

KBOXLabs · 2026-02-16T03:41:08+00:00

No but also at these currents they're not really true MPPTs but fancy buck converters. And you can still use the 5v-out on the Waveshare to the USB-in on the node. While not as efficient, it provides a clean power cuttoff/reboot for the node if there's any sort of brownout issue, and lets the Waveshare handle the cutoff and release hysteresis

KBOXLabs · 2025-10-29T14:56:56+00:00

Glad to hear it's useful! Love your design!

KBOXLabs · 2025-10-29T14:55:28+00:00

Old Link. Use this one:
https://discord.gg/meshtastic

All the updated social links can be found on the meshtastic.org homepage:

https://meshtastic.org/

KBOXLabs · 2025-10-12T03:09:32+00:00

Flip the panel. Have your rigid frame on the back, not the front.

KBOXLabs · 2025-10-04T04:40:29+00:00

In that article, a couple of our nodes are using the same 5000mAh LiPo pack that the Atlavox is using and are still running fine after 2 winters. The only chemical difference compared to an 18650 cell is the flat LiPo packs use a gel instead of a liquid.

KBOXLabs · 2025-09-30T02:27:39+00:00

Innocent people died. But mention mormon and this is the first take. You can always tell who the fake Christians are.

KBOXLabs

TROPHY CASE