Speaker 1: It's been four months since I deployed this Spec five
Speaker 1: relay solar node for Meshtastic here at my Galveston house
Speaker 1: and put it right on top of the pergola right there.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you can see that post in
Speaker 2: the camera or not.
Speaker 1: But we arrived here a few days ago and I
Speaker 1: pulled out my Meshtastic node and I could not see
Speaker 1: this thing. It was not powering up. But I must
Speaker 1: make something very clear. I don't think this was a
Speaker 1: node failure. I believe it was a battery failure. This
Speaker 1: battery doesn't seem to be taking a charge anymore. This
Speaker 1: is the rack wireless forty six to thirty one board
Speaker 1: that came from inside of this.
Speaker 2: This was mounted in here like this.
Speaker 1: This right here goes to the external antenna plugs on
Speaker 1: the back of the board right there. This right here,
Speaker 1: I believe that's a GPS and it's either a GPS
Speaker 1: or a Wi Fi antenna, I don't remember which one.
Speaker 1: I think that's a Wi Fi antenna, so that you
Speaker 1: can access it remotely with a little more range to it.
Speaker 1: And then the solar panel plugs into the USBC connection
Speaker 1: right here. I powered this up with an external USBC
Speaker 1: charging brick and it powered right up. There was no
Speaker 1: moisture in here. I thought maybe it had leaked and
Speaker 1: ruined the board. It did not do that. It was
Speaker 1: nice and secure. I ended up breaking this off simply
Speaker 1: because these two screws were rusted and you can see
Speaker 1: the rust on it. I mentioned the rust in the
Speaker 1: first video that I made, and I also mentioned the
Speaker 1: factor i'd put it up with zip ties. A lot
Speaker 1: of you said that the zip ties would be the
Speaker 1: first thing to fail, and I was like, no, the
Speaker 1: screws are going to rust before anything. I should have
Speaker 1: put like liquid tape or spray painted into something, and
Speaker 1: I didn't do that. So the zip ties were fine.
Speaker 1: No problems with the zip ties at all. The zip
Speaker 1: ties held the thing just fine. It was up there
Speaker 1: just like it should have been. So those of you
Speaker 1: who didn't believe in my zip tie idea, we were
Speaker 1: wrong about that.
Speaker 2: Just say it. Just say it.
Speaker 1: But the device itself would not power up, and again
Speaker 1: I really think it was because of this battery.
Speaker 2: So I've ordered a new battery for it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to rebuild this device, but in the meantime,
Speaker 1: I'm going to deploy this new new to me, Well,
Speaker 1: new here, I should say Seed Studios P one Solar node.
Speaker 1: I put this together yesterday. It's been sitting on the
Speaker 1: table since yesterday afternoon. I did spray paint all of
Speaker 1: these brackets here. They were like a naked metal color.
Speaker 1: They were like a stainless steel color. And stainless steel
Speaker 1: it's not going to hold up down here. One thing
Speaker 1: about this that I don't like as well. First of all,
Speaker 1: the solar panel is not as big. The Spec five
Speaker 1: has a twelve watt solar panel. That's this got big
Speaker 1: guy right here. This guy, I believe is either like
Speaker 1: a five or six watt solar panel. Now down here
Speaker 1: with all the sun is probably going to be fine, okay.
Speaker 1: And it really kind of depends on the size of
Speaker 1: the battery. So the size of the battery between these
Speaker 1: two are comparable, but it's just not going to get
Speaker 1: as much charge. But the thing I really don't like
Speaker 1: about this Seed Studios node is that it's got this
Speaker 1: smaller antenna on it that's not going to be as
Speaker 1: high of a gain as this big antenna right here.
Speaker 1: So I can change that out later. I can totally
Speaker 1: change that out later. This is the stock Coax that
Speaker 1: came with the Seed Studios device, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: change this out for ABR Coax at some point in
Speaker 1: the future, and I.
Speaker 2: Will probably upgrade this.
Speaker 1: But today I'm going to deploy this Seed Studios node
Speaker 1: up where the Spec five relay was right there on
Speaker 1: top of my pergola. I am going to zip tie
Speaker 1: it again. It's going to take one of these zip
Speaker 1: ties right here and secure it up there.
Speaker 2: Actually I might do two.
Speaker 1: The bracket's not as big on this one, but the
Speaker 1: node itself is smaller and lighter weight than the Spec
Speaker 1: five relay was either, so I'm happy with the Spec five.
Speaker 1: I think that the battery issue was due to the
Speaker 1: fact that this battery stamped twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: I put it up in January of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: It should have lasted longer than that, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was afraid that the rest would get to it,
Speaker 1: or that the moisture would get to it, and that
Speaker 1: did not happen.
Speaker 2: I think it was just simply a battery failure.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna put up the Seed Studios P one
Speaker 1: today and I'm going to let it run on meshtastic.
Speaker 1: Something I tested When I first got here, I couldn't
Speaker 1: get into the Spec five relay node, so I took
Speaker 1: it down. I powered up with an external power source
Speaker 1: that powered right up. I connected to it with my
Speaker 1: phone and I scrolled through there and I found I
Speaker 1: think it was something like eighty nodes that it had seen.
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing only lasted like a week to
Speaker 1: ten days after I left it, and then the battery died.
Speaker 1: But during that time it saw eighty nodes on Meshtastic.
Speaker 1: I had reset it right before I left. This was
Speaker 1: Winterfield Day weekend late January of twenty twenty six. Got
Speaker 1: back here Memorial Day weekend in May of twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: and it had seen eighty nodes before it died. I
Speaker 1: did a war driving video driving around just about the
Speaker 1: whole island of Galveston a few days ago while I
Speaker 1: was here on this trip, searchy for both Meshtastic and
Speaker 1: mesh Core nodes, and I'm going to link that video
Speaker 1: up in here somewhere. It'll post before this video post
Speaker 1: right here, most likely. And suffice it to say that
Speaker 1: meshtastic is more live and well here down here than meshcor.
Speaker 1: There's hardly any Meshcore activity. At all, So we're gonna
Speaker 1: leave it on meshtastic for now. I'm going to put
Speaker 1: it up there, and I'm going to see how it
Speaker 1: works over the next few months because we won't be
Speaker 1: back here until Labor Day, which is September of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six. I painted this post. It had a little
Speaker 1: bit of rust around the threads here. I couldn't really
Speaker 1: get to the backside of it. But something's better than nothing.
Speaker 1: And we're going to put this up basically like right
Speaker 1: there to where the sun or to where the solar
Speaker 1: panel points towards the sun where the sun usually is.
Speaker 1: The sun basically goes from like this the camera right now,
Speaker 1: So let's put this around here. Then I'm going to
Speaker 1: paint the screws on the back of it, put another
Speaker 1: zip tie up there around it because that doesn't hold it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's get another one.
Speaker 2: All right now.
Speaker 1: Of course is when the mowers guys more in the
Speaker 1: lawn next word, decide to start so as that we need.
Speaker 2: To in the background. Now, okay, that's fine.
Speaker 1: So we got the I got the two zip ties
Speaker 1: on it. It's pointed again. The sun basically starts over there,
Speaker 1: it goes this way, so this is probably the best
Speaker 1: area for the sun right now to hit it, because
Speaker 1: the sun will be it's basically overhead right now. It's
Speaker 1: getting a little bit of sun the way it's sitting
Speaker 1: right now, the sun's right there, and the sun will
Speaker 1: come up over there in the morning. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: spray a little bit of spray paint on here, especially
Speaker 1: on these bolts right here, which will be some of
Speaker 1: the first things that reast. Those are stainless steel boats,
Speaker 1: and stainless steel is worthless down here. But We're gonna
Speaker 1: let this go, and I'm going to be interested to
Speaker 1: see what type of meshtastic activity we see between now,
Speaker 1: which again is the end of May and when I'll
Speaker 1: be back here was like a week after Huntsville ham
Speaker 1: Pass around the end of August, first part of September
Speaker 1: for Labor Day, so there was some really good meshtastic activity.
Speaker 1: Now to play Devil's advocate, I wasn't able to actually
Speaker 1: contact anyone. I haven't actually held a conversation with anyone
Speaker 1: over meshtastic or mesh core from this area, but it
Speaker 1: sees a lot more mestastic nodes than it does mesh core. Eventually,
Speaker 1: I would like to put a mesh Core repeater down
Speaker 1: here also, and that was actually my plan for this one.
Speaker 1: My hope was to get the Spec five relay check
Speaker 1: on it, make sure everything was working well with it,
Speaker 1: and then set the Seed Studios node up on mesh
Speaker 1: Core and put it over there on the other side
Speaker 1: of the rooftop here. But since my war driving efforts
Speaker 1: found very little to know mesh Core activity and my
Speaker 1: Spec five relay was dead due to a dead battery,
Speaker 1: I think I decided just to go ahead and flash
Speaker 1: the latest beta firmware of mesh Tastic and put it
Speaker 1: on the Seat Studios nodes, So stay tuned. Put a
Speaker 1: comment below, check the link of the description BLOW. I
Speaker 1: will put a blog post up. I started a new
Speaker 1: blog that I mentioned in a few videos back. I'll
Speaker 1: put a blog post up and I'll link it in
Speaker 1: the description blow of this video, and I'll have links
Speaker 1: to this the Spec five and everything else we talked
Speaker 1: about today, along with some discount.
Speaker 2: Codes for the Seed Studio stuff.
Speaker 1: So let me know if you're using Meshtastic or mesh
Speaker 1: Core in your area, which one works better for you
Speaker 1: and what activity you had. So seventy three guys and
Speaker 1: as far as this video goes, we will see you
Speaker 1: in September to check on the status of everything.