Testing #solar power in my kitchen window (no direct sunlight due to the roof overhang) taught me, I get absolutely zero power. Literally none.
Now it's time for direct sunlight testing:
Currently getting 0.37A (1.85W) despite the angle being imperfect.
I'd like to add that after 8 days, the battery level has only dropped by 1%.
So, yeah, it seems like maybe my battery pack is absurdly large. Like to the point where it will charge up during the summer and last the entire winter, which is just absolutely insane.
#meshtastic #mesh #network #electronics #hardware
high #tech #homestead
....how large is that battery pack?!
The batteries were salvaged, but my best estimate is that they were 5Ah when new, which means it'd be a 20Ah pack.
what ended up being your verdict on the RAKs? i may grab a couple more nodes and im deciding if i should keep the fleet heltec or try rak 😁 unsure yet if i care too much about battery life but, seems nice if prices are similarish..
The RAK seems to be very power efficient as compared to the heltes v3 boards. One battery pack would me about 4 days on a full charge with a Heltec.
The company said they are going to replace the one which can not be put into u2f upload mode and I'm still waiting for that to arrive (shipping takes about a month). So looks like RAK is redeeming themselves.
I think the amperage I was seeing was not from the RAK itself, but rather from the power board that I have installed with nothing wired into it. The numbers show up under the environmental sensors section, which was my clue. I'd expect those numbers to be all zeros, so that's concerning, but that's something I can look onto further once I get a second unit working.
nice 🙏🐧 thanks for the update. i was reading that rak does last a lot longer, but that if heltec is put in power sleep and you dont continuously stay on the bluetooth it is about ~2x the rak power draw.. (ie rak lasts two days and heltec 18hrs).. all just anticdotal but that IS pretty nice being so efficient..
It is possible my RAK node is going into sleep mode, but it certainly shouldn't be. I've left bluetooth on for the past 8 days because when I turned it off (on my phone), the phone thought the node had booted a few second before I connected to it.
Not sure what's going on there, but it's a reason to remain skeptical about my data.
ah interesting.. yeah i turn bt on and off all the time its neat because when i reconnect i get all the messages that had been received since last disco. im fortunate to have a lor of receive capability tho so far, sending not so much 😂 interesting that receiving appears to be way easier than sending (to large mesh)
