I Built a Solar Meshcore Car Node for My Roof (No Wires, No Drag)

I flashed #MeshCore on this one, but you can build the exact same node for #meshtastic . The hardware is identical either way, and the choice comes down to one flash at the end. This is the Low Profile Solar Meshtastic Car Node by Blackout Concepts. It is a magnet mount, solar powered LoRa enclosure that sits nearly flush on the roof. No wires running through the door seal, no bulky box catching wind, no plugging it in to charge. Park in the sun and it handles itself. In this video I walk through my actual build: I discuss my experiences with printing the shell and TPU gasket, fitting a RAK4630 on a RAK19007 base, wiring the solar panel in, sealing the Type N pass through, and getting the magnets mounted without wrecking my paint. I cover what went smoothly, where I got tripped up, and show where I mount this on my #fordbronco. I went MeshCore for the routing model and the low power behavior, but nothing in this build is firmware specific. Print the same parts, wire the same way, then flash whichever firmware your local network is running. If your area is heavy Meshtastic, flash Meshtastic. If people around you are moving to MeshCore, flash that. You can always change your mind later without opening the enclosure back up. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PRINT FILES (free) Low Profile Solar Meshtastic Car Node by Blackout Concepts: https://www.printables.com/model/9947... All design credit goes to Jason at Blackout Concepts. I only printed it and assembled it. If you build one, go leave a like on the model page. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT YOU NEED (Jason has links to everything on his printables page). 3D printed parts: 1x shell (standard, N-Type, or the no external antenna variant) 1x tray matching your base board (RAK19003, RAK19007, or Heltec T114) 1x TPU gasket 2x panel spacers (I didn't see these and ended up buying some at the hardware store). Print in ASA. PETG is being long term tested by others in the comments on Printables. Do not print this in PLA, it will warp in the sun. Electronics: RAK4630 WisBlock Core RAK19003 Mini base board or RAK19007 also fits, use the matching tray Soshine 6W solar panel LiPo battery sized to your tray (i used 3000mAh) NMO pigtail and 915 MHz antenna of your choice, I used ALFA 915 - Optional GPS module, I did not do this. Hardware: M3x8 stainless screws (M3x6 also works) Rubber coated neodymium magnets Blue thread locker Heat shrink and silicone sealant The RAK4630 mounts to the base with the M2.5 hardware that comes in the kit. Skip heat set inserts on the printed parts, they can corrode in an outdoor enclosure. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ A FEW WARNINGS Put paint protection film down before you stick magnets to your roof. Learn from the rest of us. This enclosure is weather resistant, not waterproof. Seal the SMA or NMO pass through and use judgment for your climate. WEATHERPROOF your dang connector to the antenna (lol) -    • How to Weatherproof a Coax Connector (Most...   Check polarity on your battery connector before you plug anything in. Same goes for the solar panel. Some of them ship reversed and that is an expensive mistake to make....twice. Do not overtighten the magnet screws. Blue thread locker, snug, done. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FIRMWARE MeshCore: https://meshcore.io. Meshtastic: https://meshtastic.org Both are free and open source LoRa mesh firmware for off grid text messaging. No cell service, no internet, no subscription, no monthly anything. MeshCore uses structured routing roles with store and forward. Meshtastic leans on broadcast flooding. Different tradeoffs, same radios, and the RAK4630 runs either one. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Drop a comment with what you are using for a portable solar node. Always curious what is actually out there. Subscribe for more mesh builds, off grid comms, and 3D printed gear - the stuff that makes me...DUDE TESTED. #meshcore #meshtastic #hamradio #lora #prepper #offgrid #3dprinting #meshnetwork #solarpower #diyelectronics