Thank you ArthurK, that is a nice and professional looking case. Where did you get it from? Did you cut the foam yourself? The gateway shown there is rated with 12V, 500mA, I’m thinking about using this one rated with 12V, 1A:
According to some solar calculator by a reliable German tech retailer:
Here is the calculator:
I should use minimum 85Wp and a 120Ah battery.
I was thinking of getting a 150Wp panel as they are not too expensive.
I found the case at a hardware store in Norway. It is this one:
case
This type of case is generally known as pelicase (which is actually the brand). They come in different sizes and are typically used to transport e.g. photo equipment. The original pelicases are quite expensive, but you should be able to find an ‘own brand’ in a hardware store. The foam is pre-cut in small pieces (dices) and can just be pulled out to make the hole dimension that you want.
I do not have experience with the LG308 gateway. Obvious disadvantage as compared to DLOS8 is that you still have to put it in an IP housing for outdoor use. I should hope (and expect) that it uses less than 12W. As mentioned, DLOS8 uses well below this and the electronics inside should be comparable,
85Wp sounds like a reasonable proposal. You would have to account for the worst period in winter, when there is no sun for 4-5 days or so. You should be able to find statistical solar data for your location. More power is nice of course, but will also require stronger rigging, foundation etc.
Hi
I am TTN Ambassador Japan and introduce the tech guy who is a TTN Niigata initator
as follows:
!
He uses to incorporate Dragino LHT65 ADC cable with the solar charge controller, checking the power level. It’s a good idea ! IoI
Warm regards
Hide Yoshida
Thank you for sharing the pictures of your mobile solar-powered gateway with us.
Here are some hints:
Make sure, that is solar charger is suitable for AGM-batteries. This kind of batteries should be fully loaded up to abt. 14.5V (depending on the temperature) in regular intervals (e.g. once a week). If you don’t do that the battery will loose its capacity.
If you want to have a better coverage, mount the antenna on top of the mast (antenna should be as high and as free as possible).
PS: An additional hint: use an appropriate fuse between the battery and your installation. These batteries can have short-circuit currents up to a few hundred ampere. I would not like to see your nice gateway burning.
Have fun and stay healthy
Wolfgang
Some essential suggestions from @wolfp, I’d add that when you have batteries, cable management is essential too - as in tidy, appropriate length & secure.
Even small Alkaline batteries can go wrong, as observed in a class of 9 year olds, one who shorted out a 4 x AA battery pack by twisting the red & black ends together. That was a challenging five minutes getting it to the playground sandpit without too much excitement.
Thank you guys, I’m happy about the helpful resonances, I’m sure other people will also get back here when designing their solar-powered gateways. @wolfp thank you for the fuse hint!
@CRIJapan that’s a nice setup, I’ve also got two of those charge controllers that are very cheap and can also be used for AGM batteries. The size of the solar panel and the 10Ah look a bit underdimensioned to me but in sunny regions it might be fine and for many applications you don’t need to have 24/7 lora coverage.
Cheap controllers can render good batteries bad. Or set on fire (both controller or battery).
Please consider this to be a “must-have” if it’s a gateway using TTN - other users won’t be able to uplink if you are out of battery …
I like the systems over here!
For a project I’m going to put up 16 of the DLOS8 gateways in Germany and Italy in rural areas. All on 4G.
Do you know how much data you use on a gateway?
How many devices will be in the area?
1 to 4 devices that we will deploy, sending payloads of 50 bytes each 15 minutes
So that gives you a rough idea of how much data will be sent …
Most 4G data plans in the EU will in the Gb range, so I think you’ll be fine.
Dont forget - survey the area for other networks traffic and allow for the fact that other users may connect or other networks get deployed/grow - all relevant traffic traffic will be captured and run thrugh your GW(s) to TTN back end where alien traffic will be dropped or passed to Packet Broker - its difficult therefore to predict future backhaul load, however as a giude I look at what I see/plan myself then multiply by 4 (typically), over time if you see load getting heavy you can densify the network dropping in additional GW’s which then allow user nodes to dial down both SF and Tx power (under ADR*), meaning some nodes will drop off as out of range from RF perspective, though if all in close proximity the backhaul traffic may still continue…
(*) recommend deploy all fixed/static nodes with ADR enabled for just such future proofing/mitigation…dont use for mobile nodes 
I’k thinking of Prepaid cards with a validity of a year so then the amout of data is important 
As @Jeff-UK highlights, it doesn’t work like that.
If your gateway is in a LoRaWAN active area you may well find its uploads are very different.
The only way to know is to go to site and use a gateway that can use Wifi (TTIG or a RAK Pi based gateway) and your own mobile as a hotspot to see what happens.
Or go with a pre-paid card that you can top up without having to go to the gateway.
Either way, knowing what you need without a site survey is just guessing.
Conversely a site survey only shows you conditions at the moment you do it - you might see nothing today but end up with a few hundred local nodes being picked up by it the next week, even if another gateway also went in to support them.
I’d be very wary of deploying a gateway with a limited data plan, at least unless you know that it will stop working if it goes over rather than run up overage charges.
Hi,
are there any news on your progress? I am in southern Germany, too (Allgäu) and thinking about the very same setup. I also figured the Dragino DLOS8 seems the best outdoor gateway currently available for this due to its very low power consumption.
Best regards
Philipp
For solar power you may want to look at the LIG16, whilst an indoor gateway, it has considerably lower power requirements which will more than offset the cost of a waterproof enclosure.
This assumes you are on WiFi.
Hello descartes,
no, not on WiFi. I am looking for LTE backhaul. But you are right, checking for indoor gateways and enclosing them properly will have huge advantages if the power consumption is even lower. I am mostly concerned about the solar panel size, as increased size causes harder deployment (larger, heavier, more wind load).
Its really great seeing LoRaWAN Hardware evolving; the first gateway I had in my hands was a Kerlink Wirnet (the old one, not the iStation) - you had to wire the ethernet cable directly when using PoE
Best Regards
Philipp
The main point would be to get a gateway using the lower power SX1302, it doesn’t have to be that particular product.
Once using an SX1302, system architecture including host computer power starts to play a larger role in the total than it would in an SX1301 gateway where the baseband chip hogs power and heats up.
The LIG16 has a power consumption less than 1,5W. It has an USB-port and loads a Qualcomm-driver during start-up.
It could be interesting to find out if a LTE-USB stick can be used with the LIG16.