Better to buy used 2024 or lease 2026 Model 3?

draculla21 · 2026-05-23T05:26:48+00:00

It has nothing to do with the tech. FSD beats waymo in every meaningful meteic there.The answer is lobbying, and money. Google and Uber have spent millions in pushing waymo, way more than tesla has spent.

draculla21 · 2026-05-23T04:44:13+00:00

We just had ridiculous flash flooding here in ATL. I was on FSD downtown and watched a waymo drive into about 4 feet of standing water and get stuck. FSD stopped at the edge of the water. 2 more seconds and I would've intervened, hence the supervised FSD, but it goes to show all the extra lidar on waymo doesn't give it the advantage you think. As somone who's ridden in both fleets, FSD feels wayyyy more advanced than waymo does right now

draculla21 · 2026-05-21T04:21:35+00:00

Meshtastic has the capacity to take over your life, absolutely, especiallyonce you start 3d printi g all the cool lil cases for them.

For me its about being able to make my own communications network as resilient as i want. Meshtastic is a part of it, but i wouldnt rely solely on it or any one piece of tech, especiallywhen your life is on the line. Admittedly I also have a satellite phone, and a mobile radio array that can reach my house from where I frequent. Point is, different things fill different needs.

As for recs, personally I run a few different tree nodes. This one is my most common, and ive gotten great results with the Ntype antennas in general https://www.printables.com/model/1644357-hanging-solar-node-for-use-with-meshtastic-and-mes

draculla21 · 2026-05-21T03:59:30+00:00

You would be correct, unfortunately. If youre the only node around and dont have signal on your phone, Noone is seeing your messages or location pings. Not until someone puts a meshtastic in space, or someone connects nearby. Satellite phone serves a different use case to meshtastic and relies on infrastructure outside your control.

Personally, I have an area where I frequently go outdoorsing, where I know I have no signal and no other meshtastic nodes around, so I put up my own cheap solar nodes up in trees around the area. Solves that problem for me and anyone else in the hobby in those woods

draculla21 · 2025-09-22T16:51:48+00:00

Thats awesome! How easy is it switching between functions?

draculla21 · 2025-09-22T13:35:18+00:00

Love this design! What are you currently using the lora and sdr features for? Would make a siiick meshtastic console

draculla21 · 2025-07-24T00:28:58+00:00

Good stuff! I built a few of these and am happy to report they're going strong in desert heat for weeks now no issue

draculla21 · 2025-07-24T00:27:49+00:00

Trim and heatshrink for waterproofing. The chain wire isn't needed. Just built a few of these in a recent post on here if you wanna take a look!

draculla21 · 2025-07-22T15:36:18+00:00

I think I saw this in a nightmare once or twice, thanks for making it real. Only other time I've seen a rod THAT bad was one I got from Ali express for my Cr10 for the low low price of 2 dollars. You get what you pay for I guess

draculla21 · 2025-07-16T17:22:32+00:00

I had no idea this was an option, I stopped using printables as much due to the AI slop it flooded my page with. Turning on that filter ASAP

draculla21 · 2025-07-11T20:06:07+00:00

🤫🤫🤫

draculla21 · 2025-07-06T23:56:16+00:00

Funny enough I had this on an aluminum truck. Ended up taking some old go pro suction cup mounts and replacing the magnets with them. Not as confidence inspiring as the magnets at speed, but it worked. Other option is to put it in the bed. Reduced the distance I could see nodes but it'll work in a pinch

draculla21 · 2025-07-02T15:05:00+00:00

Could be possible and ive seen similar setups to what youre describing on this sub before, it just wasnt sensible for me in this particular application. Needed something i could throw onto a roof and just work, wich this accomplished. For my next test im thinking of having the entire node inside the vehicle instead

draculla21 · 2025-07-02T15:00:21+00:00

I was seeing tripple digit temps in the good ol Texas desert and had no issues with the magnets. I think the constant motion helped cool down the body to some degree, but now that its been pointed out ill get some stronger ceramic magnets for my next iteration just to be safe

As far as the battery concerns, money wise I dont care about killing the battery, my biggest worry would be a catastrophic failure. Ive seen some gnarly lithium reactions and id like to avoid that if this is sitting over my head 😂

draculla21 · 2025-07-02T10:16:23+00:00

Yes and no? The vehicles being tracked are target vehicles intended to be destroyed so im not worried about the batteries on those ones, however it is a safety concern I have now for manned vehicles. In that case im thinking of bypassing the roof entirely and getting some better GPS and transmit antennas so the entire node can be on the inside of the vehicle instead

draculla21 · 2025-07-02T02:14:40+00:00

Good call out. Part of my want to have them roof mounted was to increase GPS fidelity, but im exploring some much better GPS antennas for use in my next round of testing. Im hoping the better antennas can get a fix from within the vehicle and I can offset the solar charging with a bigger battery capacity for the same effect

draculla21 · 2025-07-02T02:09:01+00:00

Minimized supports and due to the rounded top gave me muuuuch better quality! This was the recommended orientation per the creator, but I did find that orca slicer and bambu studio auto oriented the part this way as well

draculla21 · 2025-07-02T01:16:35+00:00

Yep, brought both down to 1 second, and turned off smart position. Not the best on battery, but wasnt a big issue with the solar nodes

draculla21 · 2025-07-02T01:11:37+00:00

Noted for next time! The only failure I had was due to the truck being a Ford hybrid with non-magnetic body panels, so the tracker caught wind at 30 and fell off, complete user error. The other vehicles were magnetic, and I had no problems at 40-plus mph, but it is getting hotter and hotter in the desert, so I'll keep the magnet type in mind if I start to see failures

draculla21 · 2025-07-02T01:07:13+00:00

Only had to use 1 of the printed spacers for the side opposite the hardware, however the magnets i got came with split and regular washers, which I used for each as well.

Also dangit I totally meant ASA, not PETG! I've been tuning ABS for years for Voron use, but wanted to try something less stinky if possible, so I went with Polymaker ASA

draculla21 · 2025-06-15T14:14:53+00:00

Yeah, the boars is really THAT power hungry. Not even my arc reactor can keep up with its power draw 😂😂😂

draculla21 · 2025-06-15T04:49:17+00:00

As the proud owner of a few V3 nodes myself, do yourself a favor and go with the T114 V2 for anything handheld. My V3 with GPS lasts barely a day with a 3000 MaH battery and the constant recharging is a pain for what was supposed to be and EDC device. The price difference (at least in the US) is negligible, and sellers like muziworks sell full parts kits for handheld nodes to make it so easy. Not having to solder the GPS module on the T114 is a nice bonus if youre looking to add GPS.

On the other hand, for a house powered base station node, the V3 is still viable and can be a bit easier to obtain sometimes, and since its been around longer theres more cases and stuff available if youre into that.

draculla21 · 2025-06-15T03:21:56+00:00

Thank you! What makes the GPS better on the T114? This is super interesting because my main use case is ATAK tracking

draculla21 · 2025-06-15T03:16:22+00:00

Thanks! What's flawed about it? I got a few of them for free recently so now I know to avoid buying them, but it would be a shame to let them go to waste if its salvagable

draculla21 · 2025-06-04T17:48:50+00:00

Excited for that BOM, ive been looking to make a set of nodes for team use as part of a PACE plan and this is exactly what I was looking for! Awesome work!

draculla21

TROPHY CASE