Speaker 1: Hey, before we get started, be sure to head over
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Speaker 1: sign up today and thank you for the support. Some
Speaker 1: of the most popular mesh Tastic devices are these hell
Speaker 1: Tech V three's. You can buy them anywhere. You can
Speaker 1: get them on eBay, on Amazon, several other websites. They
Speaker 1: are small, lightweight, inexpensive. They come with their own screen.
Speaker 1: Most of the time. You can get them as an
Speaker 1: option with this little pocket case that comes with its
Speaker 1: own antenna and is powered via USBC. Doesn't have enough
Speaker 1: room in here for a battery. So what options do
Speaker 1: we have besides this little RinkyDink thing, Something that can
Speaker 1: maybe give us a bigger intenna, a bigger battery, more
Speaker 1: robustness or versatility, and where we carry it around. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about that right now. This is a case
Speaker 1: I picked up from Etsy. Now again, as I've said,
Speaker 1: I said on my live stream earlier this month, and
Speaker 1: I've said a couple other places. If you go search eBay, Amazon,
Speaker 1: Ali Express, Ali Baba, I think bang Good has some stuff.
Speaker 1: Team You has some stuff. If you search any of
Speaker 1: these places for just the term mesh tastic, you're gonna
Speaker 1: find all kinds of stuff. You're gonna find cases, three
Speaker 1: D printed files. Printables has a lot of stuff for
Speaker 1: three D printed files, thing Verse and a couple of
Speaker 1: the other websites as well. But you can find this
Speaker 1: stuff kind of everywhere. I have an Amazon list that
Speaker 1: I'll link below that has several of these Helltech V
Speaker 1: three boards, and I think this is a good starting point.
Speaker 1: At first, I thought this case was a great idea
Speaker 1: because you just put it in your pocket and go,
Speaker 1: it's got It comes with the little port here to
Speaker 1: have an antenna on it, an internal it's all in inclusive.
Speaker 1: You take this case apart, you put the board in it,
Speaker 1: the screen shows right there in the clearview window there,
Speaker 1: and there's an antenna in it, and that's great. The
Speaker 1: problem is that there's no room in this case for
Speaker 1: a battery, so you have to power it via the
Speaker 1: USB port connected to something so you're carrying something else.
Speaker 1: So this is not self sustaining. This is not self
Speaker 1: inclusive because it has no room in here for batteries,
Speaker 1: so you have to power it with an external battery source. Well,
Speaker 1: I found one spot on Etsy. Now, I bought a
Speaker 1: couple of things on ets. You're gonna be seeing some
Speaker 1: videos about them upcoming. I picked this one up the
Speaker 1: other day, and this is coming from sculpt Studio shop
Speaker 1: over on Etsy. It's called a Geolink case for the
Speaker 1: Healtech V three running Meshitastic EU or USA, just depends
Speaker 1: on which one you've got. I got this right here.
Speaker 1: There's a little video about it. I have mine right here.
Speaker 1: And at first I really when I got this case
Speaker 1: in the mail, I really liked it. But now I'm
Speaker 1: not so convinced that it's really what I want. And
Speaker 1: here here's why. I'll show you why right here. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: first of all, it comes with an eighteen six fifty battery.
Speaker 1: My experience has been that these little pillow batteries like
Speaker 1: this guy right here, this what to called a life
Speaker 1: po four pillow battery that's kind of kind of neat
Speaker 1: three thousand million empowers. These tend to last longer than
Speaker 1: some of the cheap eighteen six fifties you get. So
Speaker 1: this came with an eighteen six fifty case just like this,
Speaker 1: and it came with bear wires on the end. I
Speaker 1: just spliced. Now. One thing about these cases is I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: One thing about these they come with riser boards, a
Speaker 1: couple of riser boards, and a bare wire connector with
Speaker 1: a plug on it that goes into the end of
Speaker 1: the hell tech. Okay, cool, good deal. I don't usually
Speaker 1: use that because I usually use some other form of case,
Speaker 1: but I took that connector, spliced it into this wire,
Speaker 1: did a very crude job just for this video, and
Speaker 1: then that will run from the eighteen sixty six fifty
Speaker 1: we're gonna put it in. Okay, it comes with its
Speaker 1: own SMA connector. So the good cases you want are
Speaker 1: going to be the ones with SMA connectors, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: because you you can get this is an SMA connector
Speaker 1: right here. You can get small intennas like this. You
Speaker 1: can get a larger antenna like a TVB intenda right
Speaker 1: here that folds so you can kind of set it
Speaker 1: down on the desk like that, or you can stand
Speaker 1: it up right like that. You always want your intended
Speaker 1: to be vertical. A vertical intenna for nine hundred megahertz
Speaker 1: FM and nine hundred megahertz LAURA is going to be
Speaker 1: better than a horizontal Intenna's going to get you better
Speaker 1: range than a horizontal single die what's called a single
Speaker 1: dipole antenna. If you want to use a horizontal yaggy
Speaker 1: or something like that, that's very directional, it's gonna get
Speaker 1: you a longer range. That's cool. We're not talking about
Speaker 1: that today. Maybe I'll do that in another video. But
Speaker 1: most of the time, you're gonna want this antenna that
Speaker 1: comes with the case pointed up. You're gonna want this
Speaker 1: intenna pointed vertically and not laying on the table. Laying
Speaker 1: down on the table. It will still work, it won't
Speaker 1: hurt anything. But you're gonna get better range if it's
Speaker 1: vertically pointed up. So it has this SMA on the
Speaker 1: case right here. It came like this. It comes with
Speaker 1: the little IPX connector on the coax there that connects
Speaker 1: straight into the board. And that's what we're gonna do
Speaker 1: with it right now. I'm going to connect it to
Speaker 1: this IPX connector on the board Okay, So got that
Speaker 1: connector on the board and looks like this just sits
Speaker 1: here just like that. Got the USB c out the
Speaker 1: bottom there. Good deal. Okay. Now this eighteen six fifty
Speaker 1: goes in like this. I don't think it matters which
Speaker 1: way it goes up or down. It just kind of
Speaker 1: pops in the side there. And make sure it doesn't
Speaker 1: impede my antenna right there. Make sure that fishes around there. Fine,
Speaker 1: there we go. Okay, Now this guy connects to the
Speaker 1: underside of this board right there. Okay, just like that,
Speaker 1: and then this kind of you've got these plenty of
Speaker 1: room around this to where you don't want to put
Speaker 1: it down in here with the with it sitting on
Speaker 1: the koaks where it's going to pinch the koaks or something.
Speaker 1: The koak's where the battery leads either one. The kaks
Speaker 1: of the battery leads either one. You want to make
Speaker 1: sure that they're not impeded by where you're putting this thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: just like that, and now we're going to put the
Speaker 1: battery in it. In fact, I want to put the
Speaker 1: antenna on first. It's possible to hurt the radio if
Speaker 1: you power it up and it starts transmitting if you
Speaker 1: don't have an antenna attached, so you want to make
Speaker 1: sure your intenna is attached before you actually put power
Speaker 1: to this thing and power it up. Now, I'm going
Speaker 1: to use one of these spare eighteen six fifties I've
Speaker 1: got laying around here somewhere. This is a eighteen six
Speaker 1: fifty battery that I got from Amazon. It claims that
Speaker 1: it's ninety nine hundred million empowers. There's no way that's true.
Speaker 1: There's no way that's true. I'm told these are just
Speaker 1: some cheap Amazon ones. I'm told that the best ones
Speaker 1: to get are these Samsung or Panasonic ones that are
Speaker 1: these green color. I've found some Samsungs on Amazon. I
Speaker 1: haven't found any Panasonic ones yet. And this one came
Speaker 1: at the rack wireless device that I did video about
Speaker 1: a while back, so I don't know if that's better
Speaker 1: or not. But a couple of people have said that
Speaker 1: this is the one I should use and not get
Speaker 1: the off brand, So I don't know. We'll see, but
Speaker 1: I have these. I'm going to use this right now.
Speaker 1: It'll be fine for what we're doing today. I've got
Speaker 1: all this stuff put in here, so I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: ahead and put the battery in and let this boot up.
Speaker 1: Put this in here all right, you see it booting
Speaker 1: up right there is booting up with Helltech automation. And
Speaker 1: then I'm going to put this on right here now.
Speaker 1: If you like this case, I will link it below.
Speaker 1: If you want some sort of other case for your
Speaker 1: any of your mesh tastic devices, head over to PCBWA
Speaker 1: dot com. They're sponsoring this video. You can upload st
Speaker 1: files and other types of three D printed files straight
Speaker 1: to them, get them printed, get them shipped straight to
Speaker 1: your door, and get them on a lot of different varieties,
Speaker 1: different types of filment rather than just PLA. I don't
Speaker 1: know much about three D printing. I've done a little bit,
Speaker 1: but you know, I don't keep a lot of colors
Speaker 1: or different types of filament in my possession. So if
Speaker 1: I want something quick and professional grade, somebody that's got
Speaker 1: a lot more experience than I do, PCBA dot com
Speaker 1: is where I get that done. They're sponsoring this video,
Speaker 1: so if you ordered from them, make sure to thank
Speaker 1: them or their sponsorship of this series. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get some stuff printed from them and make another video
Speaker 1: later on, but this one right here. This has done
Speaker 1: pretty well. I like the fact that it has this
Speaker 1: carrying loop here. You can put a carabiner or a
Speaker 1: landyard or something around it. It comes with this short
Speaker 1: little antenna. You can put an external intent on it
Speaker 1: with the SMA connector. Of these buttons work very well.
Speaker 1: I can press the button here and I'll turn that
Speaker 1: off and that reboots it. That's the selector button right there.
Speaker 1: You can go through and do different stuff with that.
Speaker 1: And then of course you have your USBC on the
Speaker 1: bottom right there. You can power it up. You can
Speaker 1: charge the battery via USBC. Put it on the charge
Speaker 1: at night, let it run all day. See how long
Speaker 1: it runs. I'm curious to see how long this eighteen
Speaker 1: six fifty will run this device for. Because the eighteen
Speaker 1: six fifty in my t being this is a T
Speaker 1: beam right here. I have an eighteen six fifty in
Speaker 1: my T beam that's running my truck. But the T
Speaker 1: beam comes with GPS built in, so the battery is
Speaker 1: not only running the LAURA radio, but it's running the
Speaker 1: GPS radio as well. This one here is just the heltext.
Speaker 1: Do not have GPS built in. You can add them
Speaker 1: on later if you want. To, but this will just
Speaker 1: be running an eighteen six fifty with just the Laura
Speaker 1: radio no GPS. So I'm hoping that it makes the
Speaker 1: battery last a little bit longer because my experience has
Speaker 1: been that these pillow batteries last longer than the eighteen
Speaker 1: six fifties running basically the same kind of item. The
Speaker 1: only difference is that the t beam does have GPS.
Speaker 1: So we'll see. But let me know what you guys
Speaker 1: think about this. Do you have this case? Do you
Speaker 1: have another case? I found a couple of cool cases
Speaker 1: on eBay, I ordered them, I got them in I'm like,
Speaker 1: those are cool. I put them down somewhere in my
Speaker 1: house and they'll turn up. They're around here somewhere. But
Speaker 1: I like getting the Heltech is probably the easiest. It's
Speaker 1: probably the simplest and most inexpensive board to start with
Speaker 1: if we're starting in mesh tastic. It's powered by USBC,
Speaker 1: it's got that little connector in the back for an
Speaker 1: external battery, and then all of these different cave there's
Speaker 1: a lot of different options for cases for this thing.
Speaker 1: So it's great because you can get cases that have
Speaker 1: external antennas. If you get an external intenna, a larger antenna,
Speaker 1: something like a bendable antenna like this, like that right there,
Speaker 1: or if you get an external antenna to put on
Speaker 1: your vehicle, some sort of magmount, it's going to extend
Speaker 1: your range greatly. So it's always good to have options
Speaker 1: for the antenna. Let me know what case you're using.
Speaker 1: If you're using a Heltech V three, let me know
Speaker 1: where you get your cases from where you found it,
Speaker 1: and uh, maybe I'll pick up something else in the future.
Speaker 1: Seventy three. If you guys like this video, check out
Speaker 1: these videos more about mesh Tastic right over here. Seventy three.
Speaker 1: Everyone have a good day.