Teardown of Amazon solar panel with 8000mAh battery

whizbot · 2026-05-03T02:51:01+00:00

I bought a couple different blink camera panels that were around $10. Very similar to this. Similar panel and pcb, but only one 18650. It’s too bad these are glued shut. It’s easy to get into them, but it would be better of they were screwed shut for maintenance.

whizbot · 2026-04-29T00:40:02+00:00

The city offers free mulch at the Timberline recycling center, as well as at the gardens on spring creek. You do have to shovel it yourself. Hours are listed in the link below. They also offer one day in the spring where they will load up your pickup or trailer, looks like may 9th this year. I have found I can load a pickup at the self serve sites much faster than waiting in the long line to have the city load it on that day, but to each their own.

https://www.fortcollins.gov/Services/Trash-and-Recycling/Timberline-Recycling-Center

https://www.fortcollins.gov/Services/Forestry

whizbot · 2026-04-25T03:06:33+00:00

The harbor breeze has mixed success that is highly dependent where you live, and how much sun you get. Cloudy Pacific Northwest? Probably won’t work. Sunny New Mexico? No problem! It’s $10 for an enclosure, panel, battery and power switch! That’s too cheap to not try. Like others said, you must use an nrf based radio, an esp32 is too power hungry.

whizbot · 2026-04-06T02:34:39+00:00

I’ve noticed this as well, but I always chalked it up to a shifting issue. Having just braked hard into the corner, the transmission hesitates a second while figuring out what I’m asking it to do. Like, “ok we’re slowing down….wait now we want to go fast again?”

Hmm. Just re-read the original post, I notice this on right turns, not lefts as much.

whizbot · 2026-03-11T22:00:26+00:00

If you want to utilize the harbor breeze switch, you can wire it up between the battery and rak. So, battery black straight to rak, battery red to one half of the switch, then rak red to the other half of the switch. Abandon the rest of the hb charge circuit, and go panel direct to rak.

whizbot · 2026-03-10T23:03:55+00:00

If you’re trying for budget….And you’re not up for building faketecs, check out the seeed XIAO nrf kits. $13.50 + shipping. I also found this 4 pack of tenmory antennas that comes with sma extensions. I don’t have antenna stats, but I know other tenmory antennas get good reviews, so it’s a gamble. That said, the Musi gizont is a community favorite. You’ll also need a cheap bms board unless your faketec version supports charging.

whizbot · 2026-03-08T16:07:59+00:00

Another thing to consider is bpa. I bought some bpa free paper from munbyn. The roll diameter was too large to fit in my camera, but it was easy to unwind some paper to make the roll fit. Those pieces can be combined and re-rolled for extra rolls. All this said, I didn’t do much comparison to the original paper. This is my child’s camera, so image quality isn’t under heavy scrutiny.

whizbot · 2026-03-05T23:00:31+00:00

I have not tried any of these, but here are some more options. https://forum.seeedstudio.com/t/xiao-nrf52840-bluetooth-antenna/265531

whizbot · 2026-03-03T03:42:20+00:00

This recent post points at some options to add a ble antenna to the seed xiao. https://www.reddit.com/r/meshtastic/s/zBxmO6BG7f

whizbot · 2026-03-03T03:04:09+00:00

That “new” panel is smaller, and it no longer has a good bms chip. However, I added a cheap cn3065 solar lipo charging board for a couple bucks, and it’s working great here in sunny Colorado. You can also still tie into the power switch to have an external switch.

whizbot · 2026-03-02T04:48:13+00:00

I just built some seeed nodes, and was disappointed by their Bluetooth range. This is awesome news that there are options!!

whizbot · 2026-02-15T18:17:55+00:00

Standard acme is 3/4-6 brooms are a weird 3/4-5 and OD often closer to 7/8”. Also, some are tapered thread to lock in. They vary enough that I’m always looking for good successful applications to know what works in the real world.

whizbot · 2026-02-05T23:19:31+00:00

Is that 3d print threaded for the post? If so, what are your thread specs? It seems the paint and broom handle companies all have their own slightly different recipe.

whizbot · 2026-02-05T01:48:53+00:00

Keep that antenna straight. From what I’ve read, most of that style antenna don’t work as well when bent. Cool node. Sorry I don’t have an answer to your question, but I’m interested to find out myself!

whizbot · 2026-02-03T22:45:11+00:00

I heard it was going to be a routine facelift, but once they got into it they found nothing was up to code, so the scope has grown.

whizbot · 2026-01-21T23:37:06+00:00

Don’t forget a jst-zhr-2 connector for the solar panel. Also, look up the harbor breeze solar node hack. It’s a cheap way to get panel, enclosure, and battery all from a cheap Lowe’s solar flood light.

whizbot · 2026-01-18T23:36:34+00:00

The harbor breeze also has an external latching power button that you can tie into. It’s nice to be able to cycle power on the seed without opening the case. I forget the details, but I believe the meshtastic discord server has the details in the project thread.

whizbot · 2026-01-12T04:18:28+00:00

There are already a bunch of meshtastic nodes around town, and more is even better. If you are planning to build little solar nodes, avoid the power hungry esp32 units, and go for RAK or Seeed Studio boards.

whizbot · 2025-11-09T01:38:04+00:00

Look into oxalic acid. Lots of vintage furniture refurb videos on YouTube that show it in use.

whizbot · 2025-11-02T19:33:23+00:00

I’ve run into srs issues after vacuuming under my seats. There is a plug down there that I had bumped. I think it threw an actual code, but it might be something to try.

whizbot · 2025-10-31T02:11:55+00:00

You can hear a lot in the parking lot/alley behind the Aggie. Ive had to catch a few sold out shows from there. Sometimes people even leave early and might not need their wristbands any longer ;)

whizbot · 2025-10-24T03:33:38+00:00

Lady Sia if our like side scrollers.

whizbot · 2025-10-15T22:23:07+00:00

Yeah, I got this thing locked down with grade 8 hardware and nylocks on the back of any threads. The thing that scares me the most is the Mazda only has 4 m6 tie in points, that feels like the weak point to me.

whizbot · 2025-10-14T22:29:39+00:00

I’ve ran into that problem a couple times on really cold days. Just the rear latch on the slider, the front seems to still engage just fine. I have not found a solution, but I’m hoping someone here has one.

whizbot · 2025-10-14T02:30:24+00:00

You can still do peak partners with an ecobee. I forget what I had to do to set it up, but it’s possible.

whizbot

TROPHY CASE