For what it’s worth Mitra, in my day job I develop products - often from plastic. I design injection moulded parts, have a full CNC machine shop at home including 3d printing, and relationships with factories in China and Australia. An enclosure like this is about a $10k tool, and no more than $0.40 per set (front and back clamshell) with an MOQ of 2000pcs or so.

If there was a final footprint / PCBA, making an enclosure wouldn’t be a particularly expensive or complex endeavour. That assumes someone is going to mass produce these however.

If you need something 3D printed or machined moving forward however, shoot me a message

On 24 Sep 2021, at 11:20 am, Mitra Ardron <mitra@mitra.biz> wrote:

Code

Yes, I meant the one on the video.

3D printing is a totally fine way of doing an enclosure in low volumes, but is a massive difference in both reality and "cost" between buying something on Alibaba or just via paypal from someone who has built them before, and something only available as a CAD/3D printer file. I've gone through the process of finding a 3D printing shop, and getting something made, with a less than 50% success rate, and a one-off is always more expensive as even a good shop has to allow for the likely cost of getting it wrong the first time.

One of the advantages disaster.radio potentially has over some of the other solutions its the potential for geek-free setup and install. I can figure it out, but most of the villages around here - who could use a setup like disaster radio - don't have a resident geek, and trying to find a 3D printer to print a one-off certainly puts it in the needs-a-geek bucket.

The enclosure Sam suggests sounds a better candidate, though it needs the panel mounted separately.

Sam

I'll try that enclosure you suggest - its a good price. But I'm wondering, have you tried using one of them with the other parts in that part list? How did you handle mounting to and getting the aerial out, Are those connectors the right size for that, without looking in detail at the components I'm guessing it would want the small connectors for the solar panel cable but its unclear if the 4-8 or 9-12 connector would be best for the antenna proposed - I think the smaller (the antenna says 8mm)


On 24/9/21 7:10 am, Code Bus wrote:
What enclosure are you referring to?
If you mean the one featured in the video, you're free to make them yourself. The design exists as CAD and in 3d printable formats in the github repository. It is not less "real" simply because it hasn't been mass produced.

Otherwise, like we've suggested, you can follow the Aliexpress parts list and make a working device, or use any enclosure designed to prevent water ingress.

Sep 23, 2021, 20:46 by mitra@mitra.biz:
Thanks Sam

I was looking at the enclosure shown on the image on https://disaster.radio/ and thought that might have been real :-(

- Mitra

On 23/9/21 10:30 pm, sam@bristolwireless.net wrote:
Can you clarify what the current state is - i.e. if I got the boards, built a pair of units, and flashed it - then would the chat and map apps talk over it.

Yes that should be possible. You can buy them pre-flashed if you want to miss that step: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000396836096.html

If using the webapp you only get a chat.

If you use the Android app then you get a chat and a map AFAIK.

By the way ... I notice there is a bad link to the enclosure on https://disaster.radio/build/

Thx started fixing that link here: https://github.com/sudomesh/disaster-radio-website/pull/12 awaiting someone to approve.


It's fairly obvious how to put it together, but there are some instructions here too: https://hackaday.io/project/170069-disaster-radio-lora-mesh

Thanks

Sam



- Mitra


On 23/9/21 10:49 am, Code Bus wrote:
The project lacks a maintainer with enough time to really give it the care it needs.
I've been spending my free time trying to modify the firmware for the v3 dual-module prototype, it is slow-going.

Other LoRa boards seem to work pretty well with the firmware in its current state


Sep 22, 2021, 20:37 by mitra@mitra.biz:

   I tried to find out what was happening with Disaster Radio, by
   asking here - got zero responses :-( its really hard to figure out
   if there is anything going on that is useful to connect with :-(

   On 23/9/21 9:48 am, Greg Troxel wrote:

   Hi,active list?Grzegorz
   Sort of.  When people ask, someone answers.  But not much seems to be
   happening.  I do have the impression that those on the list wish there'd
   be more activity, and that most of them sort of hope to contribute.  I
   of course do not speak for the coalition.

   Perhaps you can tell us why you're interested and what you'd like to see
   as highest priority.



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   --     Mitra Ardron -mitra@mitra.biz  www.mitra.biz <http://www.mitra.biz>
   +61-491-082-515 mobile; +1-510-423-1767 whatsapp


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