We all have our own slant on this, let’s get inspired by sharing designs!
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Nice 
build ideas. Everybody has a different take on this.
I choose to have my outside repeater on mains power (with a small power supply module built in). No long USB cable or external power supply, simple and effective. Only drawback is that I need to take it down for firmware updates. Maybe OTA updates will become available soon.
OTA via bluetooth is already available through the DFU app.
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It is still in the endurance and weather testing phase on the window sill. I made my own case for the RAK 190007 base board with an integrated sleeve to slide the RAK pcb antenna into (using FreeCAD). Powered by a 1.5Ah pouch cell connected via my own voltage supervisor board (enables the RAK4601 to reawaken after a complete battery depletion.) I also made my own mag-safe style connector and even my own cable using some fishing line and enameled copper wires. A bit over the top, I know, but I wanted to try that at least once.
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What battery packs are you using? Are these batteries rated for cold weather?
Links?
This is almost certainly over-provisioned, but was my first effort and has been performing quite well.
Rak4631, using a Voltaic V25 6400mAh battery packm with built-in temperature maintenance…I don’t think it’s ever been significantly less than 100% on the battery charge, even after some very cold , very overcast winter days.
I just brought it in for some maintenance, but prior to that id had been running for 10 weeks without interruption.
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LiIon 500mAh with integrated bms, powered by 60mA 0.3W solar panel 80x43mm. Runs 24 hours without sunlight.
Based on “Solar Powered Ultrasonic Electronic Bird Repellent IP66 Waterproof Pigeon Deterrent Strong LED Flashing Pest for Yard Control”
https://a.aliexpress.com/_ExSxH7H
You can solder the battery cable to the (unused) middle switch position. The device can be charged by the usb port and power on at the middle position.
I use TLORA_2.1_1.6 board as ROUTER with power saving enabled, bluetooth disabled, serial debug disabled, MQTT disabled, rebroadcast LOCAL_ONLY, admin channel to reduce current consumtion to 18mA.
At cloudy weather the solar panel produce 0.1W and at sunny weather 0.3W. I set ADC multiplier to 1.8 instead 2.0 to shutdown at 20% and super deep sleep to 7200 seconds. If the battery is under 20% the device shutdown for 2 hours, restart to check recharge and shutdown again until battery level is over 20%.
Next I will try to implement a firmware module to schedule power on and shutdown based on pre-defined times. I plan to power on the device every 3 hours for 20 minutes, start at midnight.
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Here is my build in four youtube videos: first two videos are the build itself, third and fourth videos are the ongoing endurance test with a 12 000 mAh Lion battery pack (4 cells of 3000 mAh each) and a small 6W generic solar panel
Solar node Build part 1 :
Solar node Build part 2 :
Solar node Endurance part 1 :
Solar node Endurance part 2 :
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