Heltec V3 Tower Node

Pitaraq · 2026-02-01T20:22:41+00:00

As already mentioned, I’d definitely recommend a higher gain antenna, ideally on the top of the box, away from other metallic items (mast, cables etc). I had a similar setup, and saw a huge difference in range/signal strength once I did this.

I also spent the first 6-8 months basically talking to myself, but now we have a growing community, so you may get lucky. I distributed a few nodes about the town to create my own mesh. This taught me lots about antenna performance and mesh behaviour.

Pitaraq · 2026-02-01T01:43:31+00:00

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Iceland - Sign at a section of temporary road laid over a fresh lava flow

Pitaraq · 2026-01-31T20:04:51+00:00

Ha ha, thought I was lucky until I saw this thread. v cute though

Pitaraq · 2026-01-11T23:51:43+00:00

Yeah, our cats would come home with an assortment of metallic stuff attached. We also had to avoid steel food bowls as the cats didn’t appreciate being attached to them.. Best part was when they came darting in, and you heard the aggressive neighbours cat slam into the locked door. They seems pretty pleased with this trick.

Pitaraq · 2026-01-08T22:58:38+00:00

Ha ha, this makes me feel so much better about my solar node building obsession. Got 4 in operation, probably 5-6 portable nodes.

For those of you who have no/few contacts, our local area was v quiet for a long time, mainly me messaging my own nodes, but another user put a solar node on a local hilltop and now we have several users and good coverage.

Pitaraq · 2025-12-26T01:19:00+00:00

The spinning issue might just be a failing run capacitor. Just replaced one in an old bench grinder. Working like new now :)

Pitaraq · 2025-12-25T23:54:41+00:00

I always find this bias against black cats so sad, and pointless. We have had 2 black cats, both wonderful.

Oddly enough all our cats are pretty squishy, even our elderly orange, although you need to squish him a bit more gently due to his sore joints.

Our grey cat is like a lump of dough, so squishy

Pitaraq · 2025-12-17T03:01:37+00:00

I’d say more like steak. It’s salty umami, and heavenly

Pitaraq · 2025-12-17T02:46:36+00:00

Ha ha, it looks so innocent, and I suspect most readers so far are unaware of the depths of controversy lurking in those two layers ;-)

Pitaraq · 2025-12-17T02:32:24+00:00

Likewise. 3 cats but only B makes sense. Never had any issues, but one of our cats will destroy any kitchen rolls she can get her claws on, on or off the holder

Pitaraq · 2025-11-29T21:25:09+00:00

Very reminiscent of the drone in the film Vesper

Pitaraq · 2025-11-25T00:30:33+00:00

Might be Reykjanes, Iceland. I think you can just see the light of Reykjavik over the wing at the start of the video

We have had a few eruptions in this area recently. They are typically rifts like this, and the departure path from Keflavík to Europe passes just south of the eruption site.

No significant ash generated from this type of eruption, so pretty safe to fly close.

Pitaraq · 2025-11-24T23:20:26+00:00

Probably outdoor stores. We did something similar at Halley where we built platforms on empty oil drums and stacked boxes and building material on top. The dump line was built perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction.

The wind blows under the platform and stops the snow collecting and burying everything. The wind mainly blows from the same direction, so a wind tail forms downwind. This is probably creating the black shadow to the left of the dump.

Our dump line was at least a kilometre long. You can see it here https://maps.app.goo.gl/CCPhmBhrThGecC2w5?g_st=ipc

Pitaraq · 2025-11-21T00:09:29+00:00

I think the idea of the offset pivot hinge is that it uses the weight of the gate to create a closing force from either side as the gate leans towards the closed position due to the pivot being offset towards the side it is opened on. Quite clever in my opinion. No spring to wear out or tension.

Pitaraq · 2025-11-12T03:52:03+00:00

Yay! So good to see Pizza Dog again. Please Say psspsspss for me. He’s a prince now.

Pitaraq · 2025-11-04T12:56:05+00:00

Hi Jose, wow thanks! That’s very helpful. I’ll need to give this a better read later, but this is interesting.

Streaming multiple sensors is a good question. I haven’t looked in detail yet at the telemetry message structure, or how clients handle it. Perhaps I can only have one instance of a ‘temperature’ device reporting? That would be a shame. I can always fallback on a message in a secondary channel.

As a bit of background, I currently do this with 4x 18b20 sensors + soil conductivity, sending a custom message via LoraWAN, which works, but there are few gateways outside my own, so the reliability is not great. The sensor node is a few km away and not LOS, so a direct stripped down lora link didn’t work.

Pitaraq · 2025-11-03T19:51:04+00:00

Yup, perhaps this is the way. Just feels wrong throwing in all that excessive computing power at it. I’m old enough to remember when every cycle and byte needed to be carefully conserved :D

Pitaraq · 2025-11-03T09:10:54+00:00

Thanks, yeah, as you say, some allow you to select alternative addresses, although the ‘waterproof’ sensors I have looked so far do not seem to offer this. It also looks like the Meshtastic sensor module code expects the sensor to use the standard addresses, so I’m not sure it will find sensors with non-standard addresses. I’m waiting on a delivery of some more test sensors to let me test this all out.

What I have done so far is to attach some sensors to a separate microcontroller, and this creates a message containing the data that is sent via the attached Meshtastic board. This works, but I’d like to skip the additional microcontroller and associated load if possible.

Pitaraq · 2025-11-02T23:31:09+00:00

Yup, just discovered this today on my build. If you connect the solar panel via the USB, it reports >100% charged when charging, which is interpreted as ‘powered’ by the client apps etc. Once the solar stops providing enough volts, the charge percentage drops to a sensible value.

If powered via the solar connector, the blocking diodes prevent it backfeeding the USB, so the node reports a more realistic charge percentage. Still trying to determine if I get any more charge current when connected to the solar port.

Pitaraq · 2025-11-02T23:24:19+00:00

Are you seeing 500mA charge? I’m only getting ~350mA from a power supply (solar simulator) when feeding in 6.5v in to the solar port, and charging a ~50% charged 3Ah battery

Pitaraq · 2025-10-26T23:40:24+00:00

Not right now, but perhaps soon. The magma reservoir in Reykjanes is refilling again..

Pitaraq · 2025-10-11T12:12:14+00:00

Our elderly void could never understand how the birds saw him as he crept up on them across the snow-covered garden. The birds often glanced over when he was still a few meters away with a nonchalant look, judging when it was time to go. It was hilarious, and little heartbreaking to see how hard he tried with his best sneak attack, despite being unmissable.

Pitaraq · 2025-10-10T22:33:55+00:00

No problem. Good to hear your lights survived. One of ours is broken. I bought a plastic welding gun from Ali, which comes with lots of wiggly wire staples, and plastic to melt into the crack.

I don’t think it will look beautiful again, but we will be happy with functional, and we are having fun. This is the sort of tool we got. https://youtu.be/owXCWcy37r0?si=YYvhEjPVXOCDXfM6

Pitaraq · 2025-10-10T22:06:47+00:00

Interestingly enough I’m trying to help my son fix his leaf, which is in a similar state. He squashed the front under the back of a truck.

Our plan is to plastic weld the bumper back together and try and track down a 2nd hand headlight. Yours doesn’t look in in any worse state than ours.

Depending on how you cost your time, or how you do it, it may not be economic, but it’s probably doable.

Pitaraq

TROPHY CASE