DIY Meshtastic Network Device with GPS: Full Assembly Guide

so today I'm uh messing with one of these um mesh tastic devices uh if you're here today then you probably already know what this is um so this is H one from htech this is just the um you know with the plastic case on here it's the same unit right here um today I will be building and putting this into a box right with the goal of making uh basically a box that uh you know has power antennas all the good stuff and I can stick it up in the tree and use it as a repeater um the idea being is when I go out camping um or things like that that I can take I also hav order those small um I'll go ahead and put a little picture of it right there um the uh htech devices they're these really small like cylindrical devices that you can just like came from the lanyard so I'll give them my kids and then that way I can look on my phone and and see where they're at when we're when we're out and about so it's be pretty cool so for this build today um you can see here here I've got a variety of things um laid out so this is the box that I'm going to be using I already have I'm going to be using four you can see in here uh 18650 uh lithium ion batteries right here um I do have you can see that they are connected right here I did uh fully charge them uh and then now they're all connected up in parallel uh so it's going to be um a four cell configuration but all in parallel um so I'll just be getting like the 3.7 volts um but I'll have the combined capacity of of all these batteries here so right now they're just in here sort of self balancing out before uh they've been doing this since yesterday hopefully that's enough time um they should be pretty pretty close to voltage so just do a quick run through of of the parts that I have here so this is the case that I have so this is a nice you know it's a ceiling case I'm going of course be breaking that seal with all the holes all be cutting in it I am going to use this to sort of house the device you can see I have the standard I can go out here I have the standard um you know this is my mesh tastic L device right here um so the way this is going to work is I do I'm going to try to kind of do everything on it because that's how I roll um so kind of quick overview some of the different components I have so we've got the mesh tastic device it uh by default does not or at least this particular one does not come with GPS so I do have the GPS unit uh right here is the G GPS unit with the uh antenna that we putting on um I also want to add in addition to the um to having the batteries a solar panel I want to be able to you know hopefully while this thing is deployed um I can gain back at least some of the juice um from solar I'm hoping so what I'll do is I'll have the solar panel going into this small little mppt uh solar charge controller so this will output a consistent uh approximately four volts that's not quite enough I do need it five volts so I will be popping into this little boost converter and then I have these these might look familiar um these are um USB um lithium ion charge controllers basically so it's uh 5 volts in you have um your 5 volts out uh and then um actually I not yeah should be 5 volts out and then um connection for the battery so this does actually um have a cut off in it a low voltage cut off an over voltage protection um built onto this uh board which is nice so what I'm going to do is I've got the USB which I'll stick on there so I can um you know I can recharge versus USB but I also have two inputs on here that are respecting 5 volts we'll have the solar panel come into there and then all my outputs there um and then that should and then that goes just into the device I am going to throw a little switch on it right just so I can have an onoff switch for the device itself a little external antenna mounting so I can stick one of these on nice things if I'm hanging it up in the tree it can be like this if I am setting it uh down you know I can it's got the 90 bend on it so should work in either configuration um and I have all the wiring and everything I need right here to do this so um right now I'm gonna take a little pause um I'm probably going to go outside right here and do all my cuts so essentially what I'm going to do is I'm going to I'm going to end up using this case to house the device inside you'll kind of see how it ends up looking but I do need to cut this off little thing sticking up here so I'm going to chop that guy off and then in the handy ding case here I do actually I have to cut some holes because the solar panel is going to be flush mount on the outside I need to cut a couple little holes for the wires to go through I'm going to do on the bottom of it this is all what I'm going to try to do before I cut it on the bottom of it um I'm going to cut a little hold this is where I'm going to have the USB port uh coming out I think um hopefully I can fit the switch here switch is a little big but I think I can get it to fit in there um and then a whole cut hole on the top uh for the uh antenna um I'll have it just come off to the side here so I'm going to go ahead and uh I'll just do those cuts uh off camera they're not particularly exciting to watch and then once all that's done and I'll bring it back and we'll start the assembly and all the soldering and all the the good fun stuff so catch you in a minute all right so I just uh got back from cutting up the box a little bit I just did that off camera a little bit you can see right got the cutting glasses on so I did a few things here U so you can see I cut two holes to run the wires for the solar panel I did cut a hole here for the big switch um I cut a hole on the top for the antenna mount and then I cut it's hard to see a tiny little slit right here for the USB so we're going to start all the fun stuff right now all the soldering and good stuff um my plan is to put most since the solar panel is going to be on this front cover here um I'm going to put all pretty much the power system here and then just run the main wire um underneath the power power everything so uh I think so first I'll get this the door done with all the the power stuff so first things first so I'm also using uh I'm going to be using hot glue to uh to tack everything in I do have some other glues in the Hees I'll use after um to sort of permanently fix everything but for now I'll use uh hot glue sort of my my temporary just to get everything in place so I think I'm just going to do that and then I'll just cut and strip these to what I need I think uh yeah um okay so if this is going to go like this let's lift this up a little bit actually I can just take this off now protective cover okay I should have some hot glue going so I'm just going to do a little tacky tacky nothing crazy because I might want to remove it right so this is all kind of temporary until I can confirm that everything's good to go so we got this guy here hot glued in with our positive and negative off so we are going to put the so this is kind of how this is going to fit here I'm thinking like charge controller is going to be like something like there and then um and this need it's going to need the Boost let me actually desolder wires off the Boost since I don't need that all right pull this up real quick a little clean okay we're not going that side C clean okay all right so our little uh boost converter charge controller this guy okay so you can see what I'm doing here all right okay so I'm going to let's say these wires are going to go into here and then that's going to Output over to this guy which is going to be like down here something like that so that's can Bebe like that so it's going to go from here to here from there to here let's see what's you know try and do it nice and clean right as clean as possible um okay so I think yes so let's shorten these guys up here let's do it the nice way I guess you do not need these to be I don't like these it's you know this thing's great but it's it's kind of big it's kind of hard to get in there um yeah I'm just going to do snippy doah okay let's see if I can if I'm be a strip it with this okay like I said this thing is cool but it's big when in doubt old school all right these oh let's see if we can not too bad this is a little bit too small for work but it'll be okay all right so I'm just twisting wre prepping the wires A little I kind of munched up one of these wires slightly acceptably okay uh let's get these things tinned up now the goles back oh dirty from The Cutting always with the eye protection most definitely even soldering I've had little not everyone does it but I've had little bits of solder splatter before so a little bit there you don't need a lot just a just a titch all right so all right so got those wires 10 have remember be careful there's a solar panel there actually remember technically there could be a little bit of current running through there so I got to watch out um okay so I'm going to go ahead and Tin up all my pads here so there is um voltage in ground another ground and battery or in this case is just going to be my output so let's get these pads Ted up slightly okay so those are tinned up now what would be the easiest way I feel like the easiest way is if I just tack it down and then I can do it on so this is the top bottom okay so I think what did I say I was going to do like something like that yeah I think that sounds pretty tasty um actually I made these wir so short make sure that they reach yeah about right there so yeah let's do it like that that will reach okay all right let's get over to our charge controller and do this this and that so that is uh should have flipped the panel around that would have been a little nicer uh because I'm going have to go over each other okay I think I'm going to do the ground first since that one was a little weird apologize if you can't see her and my head is probably in the way but nature of the Beast okay that looks that's a good solder there all right let's put this one I'll go over this one see I can do a little little flipp aoo okay it's not want to f uh maybe I don't yeah I don't need to flip I can just do it like this come on good one there we go almost there almost there there it is there it is okay so I should probably test this as I go I'm thinking let clean the tip here always want a clean tip okay so let me stick on what's my easy easy oh I actually took it off but let me take this the easy way to test it real quick since I got to flip it around so it gets into a little bit of light so just want to test and make sure I am getting my expected voltage out of here so let's close that a little bit little [Music] tester all right negative positive and it's not going to activate unless there's enough let's do that there it is 4.2 all right so we're getting our proper voltage out so that is good set this aside for now so far expected all right so I don't I'm not going to need that all right so then what I'm going to do is I need to wire up the Boost [Music] converter which I'm going to put pretty close this guy's going to go like here somewhere right around there's there's the hole okay so this is going to like go here I have to build up some hot glue or something for it to sit on um yeah so it's going to go like that so then this could potentially go well this is going to have to go in there so this should actually go over here maybe out of the way over here so I can wire it here and then over there I think that's what I want to do okay so and I'm just going to wire stuff on top so I think I'm just going to glue it like that right there and then I'll solder on uh and that's out and that's in okay so I know what here okay it's the order I want so let's just get a little little bit of hot gluey there and just that right and again I'm going to probably attack this with some um either epoxy or even you know super glue or actually have some Liquid Nails uh to seal up some the outside stuff and some the other projects I'm working on so I may end up just dabbing dabbing some of the Liquid Nails on not going to cover it because I might want to take these parts off so the superg glue is really just there to kind of keep in place while I'm doing my build then I'll just tack in um a little bit of the Liquid Nails I think just to make sure it stays but at least that way if I have to remove it again you know I've learned you don't just put a whole crap ton of glue on there because then you're never going to get it off and there's always something that happens that causes you to need to take it apart so Okay so we've got that in we've got that in so let's wire these two together um going to just use what should I use use this thin wire that's together that I like this is actually part of a three wire setup that I use for um like RC cars and stuff um let's get my l so I'm just going to go from like there to like down there so I probably can just do it like here that's what I'm think I'm going to [Music] do and then I see with this is I can't really use this as the stripper if I want to keep these two pieces of wire together I have to separate enough out to get enough in to do that and I don't want to do that so that's why I love that stripper but like it just doesn't doesn't work in all scenarios right because I only want to separate this little bit if you can see that um on each side and that stripper I would need to do more right so I just want a tiny bit and then I'll just use this stripper to so these are stripped off that should be pretty good so ground battery so that way oh let's actually get this all tinned up okay all four to [Music] 10 without melting the jacket perfectly remember when you're tinning you just it's just need a little bit you know try to not overdo it and it actually makes it harder um okay I think these are already tined because I did this before but let me there's a little bit there okay oh okay so ties we're going to do ground first Sometimes being left-handed is annoying swap hand here without burning myself all right this is a little weird doing this right-handed but it's okay oh man I'm really shaky oh gosh okay this is like not easy let me try that again and you know what I want to T that a little a little bit more there's not that much sticking off there this it's too much solder all right let's try that yeah let's see if I can do it like this huh this way it's hard without touching these other wires get him just right there all right that look pretty good so let's Bend this guy maybe run him right in between there keep him out of the way positive negative yep that's exact Direction I want cool cool so we are definitely going to do positive first there's the positive I'm going to put the negative down even though I'm going to have to just lay it again I guess okay yeah use the same wire and I'm just going to go from there to over there there to there that should be plenty right there just trying to make the wires as short as possible to minimize any voltage drops okay let's do a quick tin too much on that guy all right so let's get this negative one on first since let more pain the but since I got a solder on that existing wire I don't like that they did that I wish they would have given me a separate pad it'ss annoying to have to do multiple wires like this on the same pad let's see what's the best way got Jam is on ah actually if I just hold this that seems to get it in the right position okay let's try to do this without burning my finger or melting the Box okay this is going to be a little tricky so can't really push down did that make good enough contact let's see yeah okay I don't think I'm cause it is short so let's we can get these out a little okay so now we can do a proper one here okay there it is 5.1 volts exactly what we want all right cool beans we're looking good just did our test we are getting our five volts out which is good so next step while we finish the power system here so we got this going here we got all that doing its thing this just needs to get wired onto this so I think what I want to do is I'll just sold it onto the back side uh the negatives are over here those are the negatives is that negative all oh it does okay that's good you know what I'm going to do I am going to put the Sharpie just because I'm going to end up forgetting although I can look at I guess another one so this is negative and this is positive not the best negative positive but yeah all know what it means okay so let's see what I want to do I think I want to maybe Build It Up first and hot glue it into place is what I'm thinking thinking uh yeah okay so let's see how this is going to work okay hold that for a while glue glue glue let it dry glue glue glue let it dry let it dryy right enough remove my hand would be [Music] awesome okay all right let's try to get this down what I say so that's cool at least it's on the right sish okay let's tin the pack let just T all the pads I guess hot glue and soldering don't always go go well together I just kind of unseated it a little let it recool down and dry see that's the thing too when it's charging I don't know if it's going to get hot enough it might actually soften up the hot glue so why that is definitely just temporary just keep the wire like out of the weish and do a little more not GL the good thing about this is it does actually cover the contacts that helps prevent any shorts or anything potentially so what do I want to do next now that this is all good and we can basically we Mak can charge does this still close oh look what I did that looks like I touched it with a soldering iron that's why I didn't want close very well let's see that should help now there we go all right so it kind of looks like we got stuff in there okay so I feel like I need to work on the battery so we're going to take this out of of its parallel little setup here get these popped out then I do want to do a quick check just to make sure that the voltages are indeed pretty close to each other just to see if you know do I need to let them sit together I don't think I do I just want to be sure okay positive I put these in oh I did put these in why am I getting negative voltage it does not seem correct 4 4.155 4.1 54.1 54 4154 okay cool as expected they are any let's leave these by each other because they've been charged together and they're pretty perfectly in voltage okay so what we're going to want to do though start getting the battery packs [Music] ready I me just leave that give me something like this yeah a red one and a black one did I tin this already I did not some tinning needs to happen I didn't tin either actually so let's do everything let's do UE 10 action little t 10 t 10 and some plastic yeah okay let's get these 10 [Music] together or not 10 together but solder together pressure fitting would probably be better but I'm just let me do this this is what I got right here maybe that's okay let to see I think I'm G to make it okay all right so let's get this guy other side down little tin t [Music] tins oh you're about to die let's see if I can get this before the battery dies man oh oh that one was way better all right little heat shrink wage cover up my bad solder job there thank you yes will you cover will you go over why aren you sliding there we go little bit more a little bit more yeah okay think that's good little eat G action shrinking boy there you go [Music] look the other side little shrink of dinks all righty that's together all right so what I want to do is I kind of want to tack this down a little bit but at the same time I think I got run some wires under so let me think what I'm going to do here so these are going to go here this is going to Route under basically just over there and I have to count for the door opening and then I also need to really want to just it's hot glue on here is really bother me so let just okay yeah that should be fine okay okay and then I need my main power is going to come off and go under and it's going to go up and for my main power I was going to use I think just the same yeah that's too thin um have some stuff so what I'm going to want to do here let have it be able to come up here down here and over there so this is definitely enough there too much but it's fine okay so let's get that out of the way we don't need the orangey on this guy okay so I uh did a couple things off camera here I uh didn't have all my batteries charged up so I had to take a little moment um so I just you can see here I just um there we go um I took I just zip tied this together and just kind of hot glued it together and then I hot glued the wires on the back just to make the ease of routing so this is uh the battery pack here that you saw me kind of put together before this I'm just I just kind of dry fitted it here this is going to be my main power when we point from here I'm just getting this part done here to account for the door opening and make sure I have enough slack to um get to everything that I want um so I'm going to go ahead and do the battery now it only opens that far so a little extra just do a little extra never want to go too short okay right so let's get these guys tinned up and my pads look fine should be fine um okay let's get these down that's positive that's the negative so we want to flip it so maybe we'll do the positivo first okay these things are in the way now scoot you guys a another look cool you all right positive first this is the one that has the hot glue on it so make sure I actually get H let's do it this way this sure get a really good connection [Music] here situation that seems pretty good all right get this negao on here all righty let's take a look see so we're going to be just running this wire we got that wire situation going on uh let's this it's going to go over there too so it doesn't really matter um it's going to be like and then there's going to be a battery there yeah that should be cool I think that's going to be fine so we're going to B just do the same thing here we'll rinse repeat oh shoot what am I doing oh yeah 10 tiny MCS now [Music] oh positive negative always double check that let's see should I go under feel like I want to go under okay Mr negative okay I like that lot better I'm glad that all right clean some glue in there okay let's test tug just to make sure jacket all yeah it's fine this is going to be like this okay so this is how I'm going to have to mount this the battery pack down I need to just just side for sure this is what I want to do CU I'm going to mount it all that and then I'll clip these the Clips off take it out so they're not in the way um the zip TI um what I'm just trying to think think think all I have left to do is the actual device the GPS and then give each power oh from the switch which where did my switch go back here there's the switch so that's going to go and come out here so I'm going to end up interrupting the the red Power there I wonder if I can just do that nicely like I think I can think I'm going to do that um yeah and then all right let's see how am I doing this I'll have my I'm G to have the positive go there and here and then from here I'll just use this to pull off positive for that positive for that which I'm just going to use their plug it's got the plug on the back um and then just need to make sure I should put this well I'll do that after I got to get that in there I just going to make sure I got room for everything because then this ultimately is going I did cut off see this here I don't really need to stick it in there yet but this is going to have to fit in here like something like this and the GPS is going to go under like sha something like that the where's the antenna the antenna's right there wire so maybe I'll do it like this ways and then that way I can have let's see something like up and around like that right I want this there I'll have to mount that soon um okay I think I let's get rolling um I guess let's Mount the battery pack so for sure that's the next one let's give this a quick close test all right all right uh actually with okay okay this is what I should probably do is I I stick all the batteries in feel like I kind of need to just to make sure like I need to make sure this is going to work this in some meter tests right that's what I think that's what I think okay so I should be running power out of here then just F each out you now all right 4.1 volts so that's coming out [Music] am I going to have to boost that okay um I want to mount the battery tray it's possible I may have to boost okay but that's not going to change what I'm doing okay so let's do that tuck a little have Tobe we'll do end with a little wire management something it ties a little bit of this together something make it a little bit better okay what I want to do I think is just lay some glue in here and kind of slap it in see what happens it's not going to touch there it's only going to touch on the walls I need to go crazy with it do want to get it down as far as I I assume some of the glue is it's touching kind of I'll have to finish it off same thing about this is if I do need to pull the battery tray out I could actually pull this glue out pretty easily it's just like a it just rip out as a strip but it should do a lot to hold it it shouldn't be getting ha enough anywhere in this area I probably don't have to reinforce it with any of the Liquid Nails this might be enough okay let's let that sort of dry let's I need to clip off these Z ties okay zip TI we're g all right so I've got all this Jazz I guess what I want to see is am I going to be able to power all this off just four volts I feel like I need to boost it okay well well I'm I'm thinking my head for moment while I'm doing that me start sticking this guy in I need to kind of start having things where they're supposed to be so I can place everything I need to place the GPS antenna so I think let's see oh oh it's make sure I get all the goody on I got a goodie for that I got a goodie uh okay so how does the goody work so it's got to be like this goes [Music] on oh that doesn't go seriously where the hell is that supposed to go it doesn't make any why is that so small stupid oh it's annoying it's like I have to attach it with a separate okay so that good is not going to doesn't matter right now that's irritating so I was going to do this with the liquid nails too um all right I don't need to make it crazy T I might want to undo but let's see how that okay well it's not actually doesn't seem that tight I'm definitely going have to try s that down is this I hope go on enough oh that like barely makes it past that and I kind of like you know how that I think should work out and almost it just looks close it should be making contact oh it's pretty close though it doesn't make contact till there so if this is here that's there that should that should actually going to either take that take that wash off down there it's loose enough that's what I'm going to do need to make a little bit more of it stick out just to make sure I'm getting a solid connection to the antenna yeah I don't I think I can do without um I don't know that is nice if I make it really tight that'll help hold it in place me try it without it definitely need the Locking washer though okay yeah that looks like a little bit more sticking out that feels okay all right so I did a few things off camera just a little earlier today so just we go over that here real quick um nothing major I just finished up basically the power system uh you can see here um you know I got this I can't remember this was on camera not but I got all this wired up coming down here I do have it wired into the switch uh I did Mount the GPS antenna and I did put a boost converter right here um just so I can get it to a solid and consistent 5 volts that's what I was a little worried about when I was testing the voltage I was you know um out of the um the um this battery charge it looks like I'm just getting the battery voltage out right so there's no regulator I think on itoring anything um so I got that going to 5 volts I have it wired in with the uh the plug right here um for the mesh tastic so now I just have to wire the GPS up to the mesh mesh tastic get that mounted and get that in here and see if everything works so let's do that so I don't need this right now so I'm just going to be wiring up these wires here so let's start with this uh it's actually clean get this clean okay like I'm putting my yellow on the 47 P [Music] 47 I'm assuming is the trans it since I'm putting that into the receive it looks like on the um DPS okay then let's get Mr Green [Music] here green on to 48 pretty good okay let's get our power connectors on our positivo first yeah next Mr negative here come on okay that should hopefully be that all right so if you notic too by the way um I'm leaving the the intend on because all the random times that I powered this up just to try something out um you definitely don't want to power it up without the in head on if you forget that you can uh burn out the transmitter so let's see I'm going to mount it in here so it goes like that okay oh shoot I should have not soldered it like that all right I might have to resolder I didn't really think about that um I really do actually want it going through not to the side because I don't have room h if I'm going to be able to do that well maybe that'll work may not be able to get him in the hole but I do have to Le Mount oh that one I got through I think yeah maybe do this one more try see I can push through not so much sh I want to I got to be careful with how much heat I'm laying down here that one went in nicely this this first one I just screwed up now let's see if I can this is not going to be easy so I got to melt it and try to squeeze it down all right let's try this [Music] again want to did something I did the right thing let me check this I don't think that's going to be that good don't like that don't like that it looks like it's it might be touching the pad next to it so that's not going to work for me this is what I should have done a moment so I can't get it through super quick all right let's see if I can get this guy through o sold on the floor come my baby okay I kind of do the same thing I did last time I think yeah I did ah all right let's try this again you know okay this is what I need nip it first I need to get this out of my hand so I can actually take a moment to try to do it correctly I need to get a spin that's what I wasn't doing all right six times the charm what the hell is going on this is really close and just hard to get in there nicely might have to sell for just a top mount on this one okay well so what I want to see I guess this is might be okay as long as that's not touching could be guess when you think you have it you don't do not it's on there really nicely but unfortunately there is looks like a little bit of solder might be on the pad all right so it might be better but only what I'm going need to test to make sure there's no continuity I assume there should be no continuity between these two things and we'll take that as a good sign okay all right so I think I'm GNA take that to the bank all right let's put um all these C got to run through little slots here down yeah give it give it all right so I think let's pop the cover on for now correctly okay look at that is sticking out I feel like when I'm I gota remember I'm working over here you guys aren't seeing right because it's be over here okay all right so we got this all this goodness coming out so let's see here is the GPS module green so it'll be that one will be the green I think maybe I'll let's see if I attach it like this like super glue of course or hot glue uh if I put it like this then it'll be like this in here so where's the antenna mount is down there and it doesn't really matter because there's plent so that should be fine and it'll just kind of I'll run it under okay that all seems fine I don't think that's going to be a Puro so let's Mount this first before I solder let's just remember since it doesn't totally list it there it's too bad it's not on the other side so yeah not using the first one transmit which is my green so it's going to be green yellow um black green yellow black going this way to C1 C1 is my volt or C8 is voltage green is at the bottom green is at the bottom well I have you know what I have another one too I can look at it for reference all right so some of the hot Gless of the unus all right so I can really shorten these guys down a lot which is good I like that um okay so we can do like Bo skis this the same okay oh I haven't been wearing my glasses and I've been soldering um red was at the top I said and then that one so it's going to go like here so that's let's try to make these the same or as similar as possible think it's long enough I can do it nicely for all right let me try to Tin all these bad boys real quick one down Dam two down three and number four oh and let's do the pads so this top one was my Vol voltage voltage in this one my ground what did I say was first green I think green was first which is the transmit all right let's get the green on the board okay got a good green let's get a good yellow right there please we yellow black over here make sure I touch the chip that [Music] and the final I should made little shorter all righty everything is on looking good all right so I'm going to have to do a test here so let me CHS a little one let me put in the GPS antenna so I burn it out but I want to make sure everything Powers up okay so GPS antenna is attached and then this is just little that hole and attach when I'm ready to do the antenna real so this is just going to get bended down here and it's go something like that yeah the power all look small and fly it's a little bit harder to get this stupid plugin okay I got it this way I almost need to get my tweezers out nuts come on harder to get it l up with this plastic pie on now okay so let's make sure it's off it's off stick in one battery for now just do this real quick antenna is in I'm not going to find anything all right up board is on and GPS is at least powered so so I will have to I do have to get into settings and make some adjustments to make the GPS module uh work I'll do that after at this point it's it's in it's either working or it's either going to work or it's not right um it does look like it's powered up so um I will take that so power down get this battery out just can't do it too long because I don't want any of these batteries to get out of whack each other um okay so that's actually is that it that's actually it is huh all right okay so now I think I really just got to um pop the antenna on and I think we're there so let me three should I go this thing out a little bit okay see if I can get this pushed on all right this is that this up there let's get this that covered again okay so antenna power everything is uh everything's so up the way it should be let me stuff it in put that in there put that under antenna wish this one does this turn okay got be careful how I bend this mumo jumbo stuff okay so I think I'm just going to try to tack it in with some hot glue maybe there maybe over there maybe a little right here just have a few little touch points and then I think that's it I can probably I should be able to put the batteries in and just make sure it's that's the kicker that's something to think about too the way so Focus back there um I when I was soldering the switch I think I have too much heat on the metal contacts because now the switch still works but it doesn't have putting it to my microphone you you can hear it it click and out and engage a switch but it if you heard it before there was a nice thk it was and it's a little sof and mushy now so it might be easy to accidentally turn it on when there's no antenna on it and that would not be good so I don't know this is not for Mass resale so okay oh uh that goes on the inside oh bums bummer okay well that's why I only why I attack in lightly first right apparently that's not going to clear that'll clear okay so it's got to be like this think I was just melting my table a little bit that's okay then a little bit more to that out a little [Music] and I might be able to connect this a little I don't want to add too much all these little spider streams I can't even see that stuff on camera right I doubt it um okay so this is not where I want it to be I want right like that possible so I can kind of maybe see the screen a touch this close it's not going to be easy definitely going to be a little on the Jing side at first just until I can you know get everything working okay so now I this is kind of staying okay so switch is off I'm going to put the batteries in now we'll do our first power up task to make sure I can connect to it get all the batteries in okay all the batteries are in let's get her closed up okay now still off have to be very careful with that so I did get uh this on there finally had to screw another fer in to hold it but should work take that let's get our antenna on and get ready for the first power up test okay let's wait a second it feels yeah I'm going to have to tighten that a bit let's see if it'll let me do it from one side nope and how well am I going to be able to do it now kind of this actually will be able to hold it okay go a little tighter so I want the antenna to be loose this is the right size that would be great nope a little tight little tighter than that should work for now okay get this guy back on do our power test all it is on you can see it on right there right you didn't see on the back that's the GPS let's set there we'll connect to it with my phone just to make sure mesh tastic okay starting to connect all right it looks like it is connected I'm going to give it a moment I want to see uh takes a minute to get seems like get accurate voltage read oh yeah what 4.57 because I should be getting I was getting the like 3.8 you know 3.8 and4 which is the battery voltage so now it's showing 4.5 volt nice and it shows it it's plugged in interesting not run on battery I think the other that little little tiny jst plug or whatever it is um okay it looks good I just need to work on the whole GPS situation um so I will do uh software and all that setup um and probably update this with u you know the results but uh build so far build is complete build looks pretty good um you can see right here we're still recording there right we have our nice solar panel here we have our um USB charger right here uh we have the antenna with a little cover when it's not in use um and uh yeah everything inside all the batteries and everything so I think we're pretty good I'm going to shut this off and uh you know whoa did I just Long Beach Mesh mobile hold on let me just check my list real quick interesting I did pick up I think I picked that up I need to get this uh holding it up should just go outside um I got to get this up of a tree yeah I'm showing 5.05 volts now so it's good that should it's exactly what it should be interesting I am picking up other nodes down I didn't it before I didn't before you know what the difference of that is by the way that's the difference I think right there right just this antenna really yeah I'm picking up a few more stations now and I was picking up zero by the way zero stations zero yeah you heard me right and actually now I'm picking up a couple different stations awesome I'm GNA have to play with this cool all right well goodbye for now I will'll call that a successful uh initial build so if you want to see more stuff like this you know like subscribe comment let me know if there's things I could have done better if you have any questions you know I'm just kind of guessing at all this stuff so you know yeah all right thanks all right so a few days have passed uh since uh the entire build video um in that time um I've been able to do some testing here is the finished completed device uh I've been able to do some testing there are only a couple small things that I changed and a couple things that are different between you know the last couple days um one of which you might notice is uh these are not my safety glasses these are my regular glasses somehow between now and then I also scratch my cornea and uh contact or NOA right now but you did see me wearing my safety glasses almost the entire time so I it's random I guess okay so this is the completed device you can see it is actually powered on right now you can see the GPS light powered in the back there um it it works great so based on the four um batteries that I have in here these are the um lithium ion 18650 batteries they are what are they like guess rated at I think five I don't know it's like 5,000 milliamps I think is what they rate something like that um uh it gets probably about 24 hours of use I did run it in the backyard uh by the way it was great um um I do have so I have another one of these and this is the one I that I just you know used I started using um picked up almost nothing picked up almost nothing um and that that difference that I I talked about before is this antenna right here right just having this antenna and putting it outside and up in the tree made a huge difference I was picking up contacts from U it was like 40 to 60 miles away so it was pretty pretty great um so one of the things so one of the main things I changed actually I wanted to touch on um real quick so yeah so as far as the battery um it you know with it on like that it was about 24 hours um before I had to charge it again and then with the um it's just a 1 amp um the charge controller so it took I think it was about probably it was almost six to seven hours to get a complete full charge I mean most of that charge was completed in probably four to five hours um it did take a while to to fully complete the charge um part of that though um that I did discover was uh I had no way so one of the build things that's different about my builds and that I notic a lot of the other builds that you might see is it looks like a lot of people are powering the devices directly from output of the battery um right and I can see that because you know from the different voltages when you're looking at in the app right it reports everyone's voltages so um I I was concerned and the reason I didn't do that is I was concerned how the mesh tastic device and also the added GPS device was going to work if it was you know if the voltage got too low uh and if it was variable um I was worried if it got down you know three you know in the low threes you how that was going to work or affect performance I mean I know it works but I was I was concerned about how it was going to affect performance so I did want to have a consistent 5 volts that was the the choice I made is that my power ding system was all five volts the downside of that is when you are looking at the device um remotely it does have that consistent 5 volts so you can't tell uh where the battery is at so that's the one downside to that so I did add um because I don't really need to see it remotely this device is going to be you know around me um I did add you see on the bottom here um on the inside a voltage meter with a little push button right so I could push button and I can see uh the voltage uh which is nice um so I added that on that was kind of the one the one main thing the one difference um but it really it's great this should work I have more testing to do this should do exactly what I wanted to I'll start taking out some of my camping trips and see how it works um yeah

Channel: The Hobbyist

Views: 4,367

Keywords: DIY Meshtastic Network Device with GPS: Full Assembly Guide, diy lora gps tracker, diy gps module, diy gps receiver, lora meshtastic set up, lora meshtastic repeater, lora mesh network arduino, diy lora network, lora mesh network esp32, long range commuications, long range comms, lora for beginners, lora guide, heltec lora 32 v3 meshtastic set up, wireless comminication diy, diy wireless communication, meshtastic - long range comms

Id: 202kefreQ00

Length: 91min 50sec (5510 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2024