One tip… put some silicone kit in the screwholes from the top of the enclosure.
These screws start rusting very quick 
2 Likes
Ok, so I show off my rough lemon plant moisture sensor (+ temp & humidity, the latter not working well):
2 Likes
Answer to the mystery here:
5 Likes
Not an exact match but I ordered this one earlier this week
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/High-quality-Single-side-Protoboard-9x10cm-PCB-Universal-Experiment-Matrix-Circuit-Board/32708022278.html
1 Like
I did a search on Aliexpress and did not find much.
Thats better than most boards I ahve seen, thanks.
Having the PCB pads and holes for various connectors is a great help.
A major milestone achieved as the 1st of my TTN deployed gateways to handle 1,000,000 TTN messages did so overnight 
…had been watching for this event in recent days/weeks:
nearly there a couple of days ago:
some new nodes fired up in last 24/48 hrs accelerating incoming message rate and finally last night/early this morning:
The unit in question is an iMST RPi based ‘Lite’ GW 
that was originally supplied by Heinz and the team for comparative tests and evaluation work late 2017 and initially targeted to a private LoRaWAN NS or an alternate LoRaWAN service provider and was switched over to TTN duties in Jan/Feb 2018 once I had signed up and had registered the original TTN Kickstarter gateway so that I could do comparative tests with various GW’s under eval.
The unit has proven to be very consistent & reliable over the last ~18months, being dragged around various test sites in the UK before settling into its current location in elevated position at my office/lab. The only problem seen during that time was a self inflicted uSD card corruption that occurred when the unit was being used for coverage tests with a District Council in the north of England March last year for one of my commissioning/consulting clients where I inadvertently let the USB power pack that was running it discharge in very cold weather and system stopped functioning without gracefully closing the GW. A quick re-flash and it has run happily ever since Highly recommended if you are looking for a basic full 8 channel GW at a decent price point. I was about to buy 10 more last year myself when the RAK DIY units & later the Pilots launched at a better price point for similar spec (though using higher power consumption version of the RPi) - I really should revisit and add a couple more to my portfolio of GW’s
TestGW002 will hopefully be joined shortly in the Million Up Club by the TTN GW (TestGW001) which can only be days away from the same status
Both units are currently approx co-located (10-300m separation) along with a Laird RG186, a RAK Pilot, a couple of RPi based self builds, a Multitech MTCAP and more recently a Things Indoor GW for long term comparative eval.
5 Likes
Yeh! 2nd Member of my Million Up Club!
My TTN Kickstarter GW crossed over during the night…the one that got me engaged with TTN in 1st instance…
A quick check of the others shows that whilst many are a few 10’sK or 100’,s K messages since deployment (Q118 through Q219) several are around or close to 1/2Mill with a few that are >>0.5M…amazing how the traffic mounts up!
1 Like
Good morning @Jeff-UK, your reports prompted me to go off and check my original gateway, an RPi/ic880a up on the roof of my house, which is in the western 'burbs of Aberdeen, and isn’t a hotspot of LoRaWAN activity… errr… wrong!
More than 1.3m RX messages.
2 years ago this month when I installed the gateway it was silent except for me testing stuff. Now busy with all kinds of stuff.
4 Likes
My experience has been similar with many GW’s still quiet/low or intermittent traffic but a few have seen rapid ramping of msgs esp in last ~6 months - guess this shows building momentum
The 2 Mu GW’s are in close proximity and now see ~95% similar traffic apart from early on when they roamed UK for various pop-up sites and tests/trials.
Interestingly if I look at my original community (Bourne End & Cookham aka mid Thames Valley & Chiltern Hills area aka South Bucks) the GW count has followed a similar path https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/community/bourne-end-and-cookham/
Period - Base Line GW’s (Peak Count)
Q118 - 2 - (3)
Q218 - 4 - (6)
Q318 - 8 - (11)
Q418 - 15 - (19)
Q119 - 20 - (26)
Q219 - 25 - (32)
Though this also reflects expansion and slight re-centering of the target area to reflect actual GW deployments and user needs
1 Like
waiting for the sun to continue testing
1 Like
Two of mine landed this morning with the mail. Are you using the @Charles styled low power framework on this device? I guess it is similar to what we have built with Arduino Pro-mini and RFM95 on Charles’s PCB, possibility to remove LDO’s or LED’s? I am liking the broken out pins at a glance but have not even opened the static bags yet.
Any insights most welcome @BoRRoZ 
G
no, not yet 
must try to flash his bootloader on this board.
problem is that the voltage can reach 4.2 volt during charging… need an LDO
now that I found a very small lib for that 64x48 oled everything ‘fits’ 
will publish complete sketch later here
btw… they still getting cheaper ?
1 Like
4.2A Dual USB Charger LED Voltmeter With Switch Adapter Panel for Car Boat Truck
BoRRoZ portable mini LoRaWAN connected emergency Solar Battery Box with 220v pure sine & 2 x 5V out
1 Like
I sourced some TP5000 based charger modules which are compatible with 6Vdc solar modules and are configurable for LiFeSO4. My plan was to run some devices directly from the LiFeP04 with no regulator. Even when at peak voltage these should be below 3.9Vdc which I seem to recall being the absolute max for the RFM95?
In this case it would be possible to use this without the regulator and all LED’s for single digit uA type sleep current. I have had over 14months on a single 18650 cell (LiFeS04) without the voltage changing +/- 0.1v .
Jasper Sikken has some nice solar harvesting gear on Tindie, I can see myself diverting some €€€ towards Jasper!
G
3 Likes
this board is fitted with an 14500 battery holder and these give 3.2 V , indeed NO LDO needed, So you can remove it, but…
The idea is to build this node in that solar / pir outdoor light unit, and use the components available, and that is a 3.7 v battery that, in full Sun, is charged with 4.2 v hence to much for the node.
see
I wonder , can you burn a bootloader through the ICSP pins with rfm95 attached on the board ? 
update - use pull up resistor when burning bootloader
1 Like
Yes you can! I use mini core
No, this one: https://github.com/MCUdude/MiniCore But they seems all derived from each onther with modifications.
1 Like
tnx…
now build something like this… a pogo lever fixture thing 
