Yes, a minimum IP67(ish) enclosure should be part of the project. As per my previous comment, I think the InReach Mini form factor may be better suited to this type of device than the GoTenna/Radacat designs.
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I had Disaster Radio working on my TT-Go T-Beam a few weeks ago, support has been there for a while. The devs didn’t have that hardware so they looked at Pax Counter project and added it from that. The units they were using didn’t have GPS. Their GPS implementation simply broadcasts the location in the message thread every so often. I gave them feedback about GPS, they were not turning on the power to the ublox explicitly, so If the last project that you used on your hardware turned off the GPS it would still be off when you reflashed to Disaster Radio, and the opposite was also true. I left them some feedback in the issues section of their github. Disaster Radio uses wifi and runs a web server so no app is needed, they also have a BT app which I have not looked at. I know that for this project power consumption is a priority so wifi is not planned.
As for antennas, I have no idea if the antennas supplied with T-Beam are optimal for the frequency of the radio you buy, or they just send the same antenna to everyone regardless. I had planned to make a dipole or yagi to see if range improves. obviously a yagi is not practical to carry around and its directional, I was more thinking about my original plans for my own project where the units would be at fixed locations. For dipole at 434Mhz each leg of the dipole should be about 6 inches which may be OK in a backpack. If the antenna is optimised you can use less power to transmit a given distance, you could even adjust transmit power based on RSSI or ramp it up based on if you get a response when you are expecting it. Run a training sequence once in a while, adjust bandwidth spreading factor and coding rate too…
LILYGO TTGO Development Board Module
- Battery:
- GPS:
- Case:
- Firmware:ttgo-lora32-v1
I chose this because I needed about 80USD to print two cases.
Without GPS, privacy is protected.
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the wristband is really cool. btw - someday it would be great if someone does a comparison of various antennas - because I bet the varitability between antennas is quite high.
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I did a comparison of some antennas here:
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That shows a surprisingly low VSWR and large bandwidth for those stock antennas. Nice work. I have a NanoVNA V2 on the way that I am looking forward to playing with and learning lots no doubt.
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Rugged, waterproof and floating device (and especially nice looking) is not an overkill. I am looking for something what I can carry with me for years. Sometimes you will find a esp32 device in a enclosure like TTGO Watch, or M5Stack devices (they going to release waterproof M5Tough soon, I hope for LoRa…), but there is no enclosure like inReach Mini, in some cases Garmin Montana 700. PET Preform is a option for a node on a tree, but definitely not something you want to carry around.
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Just found something really interesting Particle Tracker One (datasheet) - it is a tracker device with nRF52840, LTE modem, ESP32 (connected via SPI) and some other stuff (like NTC thermistor, IMU, external CAN/UART/GPIO, USB-C for charging/programing, one RGB led and with one user button inside :P). It is not equipped with LoRa, but it should be possible to add it inside. And it is rugged, water proof (they used TAKACHI WH145-33-M3-BB enclosure for ~30 Euro)… and for really reasonable price 159,99 (US version) / 169,99 (EU version).
Unfortunately, I bought TTGO T-PCIE with LTE modem for my GNSS tracker project for 769 km long hike recently… It is just ESP32 with LTE modem and charging circuit for 50 Euro. Need to add GNSS module (another 10 Euro), put everything into a waterproof box (10-15 Euro), write software ($$$) and maybe a nice web interface ($$$$$) that means my “home made” version will be much expensive than this commercial one…
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NanoVNA v1, can confirm seeing the same thing, the stubs that came with the TTGO boards (different suppliers) are not too bad. Bought the "full-length rubber ducky antenna " separately, however I need to bend it (not straight up like in picture) to get the best swr.
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I’ll replicate that experiment with mine and see if I get the same results.
To go back to the roots of this project: (It has grown quite a bit)
I am looking for a board to integrate in a phone case of some sort.
No screen, no battery and flexible antenna placement.
Powered directly by the phone via a micro usb-usbc plug, running the app by OTG, so the phone can be in flight mode (no radio/gps whatsoever) …(also bluetooth/wifi on the board can be turned off)
This is the best I have found so far.
I have to remove the battery holder, but otherwise it looks to be identical to the meshtastic TTGO board.(-display) Has anyone tried this board with meshtastic?
The less fiddling I have to do to get it working, the better.
I have two of these, they work just fine.
You can probably take the screen off if you need to.
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btw: if the screen is off, the power draw for the screen is only a few uA. So unless size or price is the concern, I wouldn’t bother. Instead just use the device settings to shrink the screen timeout to something tiny.
@mc-hamster
Hey that looks great 
My main concern with the TTGO’s I already have, is the antenna and power plug placement, and the height due to battery and solderd on screen
( so I considered just not adding it) But this looks pretty flat even with the screen.
I don’t see any mention of GPS (but for this purpose the phone’s GPS is sufficient)
I can make a sandwitch plate with magnetic fastening to slap on the back of the phone, more or less keeping the form factor of a slightly thicker phone.
This is excellent, christmas shopping done
There is signal loss over the little cable, I calculated about ~0.5db, but that’s fine for the convenience of being able to place the antenna anywhere.
I just measured that board at 8.5mm at the thickest point. If you take the screen off, you’ll get 7mm.
Don’t forget the strain relief (I’ll use a small zip tie) for the antenna connector.
Took another look and if you remove the on board lithium ion charger and replace the 3D antenna with a chip antenna, that will trim another 2.3mm, bringing you down to 4.7mm.
That’s okay, 1.5 mm is not worth the hassle of removing the screen.
It is good to have the option, even if it is not in primary use and power is not an issue.
I can use plexiglass to make it readable through the back.
I bet any phone in flight mode could run this for a week if not more.
Anyways, I plan to put up some strategic repeaternodes, so any reduced range on the handheld units shouldn’t be an issue. most likely my friends will never be that far away when using them locally. Should be fine for festivals, hiking, boating etc.as per initial use case
(wow, I have only been following this project for about a month, and it seems so long ago, it has grown so much.)
I think I’ll end up with a bunch of different hardware in the end, as the different usecases have slightly different hardware requirements, but the common meshtastic foundation is solid. Thank you so much to all who makes this possible 
M5Stack is going to release few new boards soon. Maybe not ideal for Meshtastic due missing LoRa, but you can get LoRa module for M5Core.
Here is their display with all new and old devices:
(src)
What I really like is that every board has a nice enclosure, not like TTGO devices…
New (and interesting devices) are:
- M5Paper - really useful for GUI interface, while your actual tracker / radio modem is in your bag (will be usefull for SoftRF’s SkyView RZ)
-
M5StickC Plus - already released, but it is new - like the old StickC, but with a bigger display, bigger battery and buzzer (both are equipped with a magnet on their back site)
- M5Stick V - similar to previous one, with a camera on back site
- M5Stick T - similar to previous one, just with a FLIR thermal camera on back site (~500 EUR!)
- CoreInk - core board with eink display and navigation switch
- M5Tough - Hardened M5Stack called M5Tough, I have mentioned it before… - ideal for outdoor nodes
- plus a bunch of new expansion Units (connected through I2C).
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!
That is first prototype of Genieblocks Lora board. It is under development. Meshtastic code is already tested on the board.
That is first prototype of Genieblocks Lora board. It is under development. Meshtastic code is already tested on the board.
- esp32-pico microcontroller
- rf95 lora module (on the other side of the pcb)
- quectel L70 gps module (on the other side of the pcb)
- chip antennas (lora-gps-wifi/ble)
- optional u.FL connectors on boards
- accelerometer sensor
- barometer sensor
- magnetometer sensor
- gyroscope sensor
- buzzer
- li-ion charger
- 1.27 mm pitch 10 pin connector (7 pin gpio)
- flat cable connector for programming the device
- 5cm x 3cm x 0.7cm
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Are the jtag pins of the esp32 pico available?
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