Hello senior developers!
Recently in aliexpress I came across a much cheaper analogue of a Cube-Cell. E-byte has released a similar module and development board. And all this joy is much cheaper than a Cube-Cell.
I would like to hear the opinion of those who understand the relay code and whether it is possible to port the code to an E-byte board without changes.
The opinion is that the original Cube-Cell is not profitable to put on a relay, because its price is comparable to TTGO boards. The E-byte solution costs almost 3 times cheaper.
I really want to know the opinion of programmers on this board!
I’m in no way a “senior developer”, but i can share some thoughts on your idea.
I was experimenting with EByte modules ( E32-868T20D → E32-868T20D-成都亿佰特电子科技有限公司 ) and ran into some problems.
Problem 1: They are not meant to be programmed but are used like modems (with AT commands). You can not (easily) put your own code on the modules.
Problem 2: Even if you are fine with this limitation (i was), you can not set all parameters you want for a peer-to-peer communication, e.g. Spreading factor, Code Rate, frequency, bandwidth. You can set some, but not all of those parameters. And i think they used a fixed small packet size like 52 or 56.
So i dropped the EByte module and stumbled over the cubecells.
Right now i would not recommend to use cubecells for cheap routers. Just buy some SX1276 modules (still good, even with SX1262 out there) and some cheap esp32, wire the SPI and you got a full meshtastic node w/o display and gps. Still cheaper than a single cubecell.
Regarding your suggested module [E78-868LN22S] E78-868LN22S-
It is a LoRa-ready device with uart interface. You can use it modem-like with AT commands, but the available settings are more “plain LoRa” oriented ( Device → Gateway → Webserver ) than device to device. Looks better than the above module, but still not what i would like to have.
There is the option to access the LoRa module directly via SPI (pins are accessible), but you have still no stand alone router and a simple SX1276 module is a bit cheaper.
I do have in mind to use the CubeCells as Lora-modules for a plain ESP32 (connected by UART). I wrote some code to integrate it in RadioLib like an AT-module but with a binary command set (no “AT+SET xxx” but command code // parameters // data). Alas im not hyper-productive like geeksville, so it’s still work in progress. The idea was to have a full meshtastic node and right now it means to let it run on a esp32.
Using the Cubecell as a connected peripheral of an ESP32 is not a bad idea at all. If you could have the ESP32 sleep outside of duty cycles and the cubecell wake it up when packets are received, you could have a decent little router node with the benefit of having the SX1262 radio.
I seem to recall reading a thread here where the Cubecell was adapted to a stripped down firmware for being a meshtastic repeater. I don’t know if that codebase is still operational, given the 1.2.x meshtastic firmware had some channel level changes. I’d be curious to see though.
I have to admit, the latest generation of the RAK4600 boards are probably where I’m going to end up for repeaters. They’re fairly reasonable, the power consumption is reportedly very low, and SX1262 radio.
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