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Difference between revisions of "Mesh/Power"
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= Low power equipment = | |||
This section is about very low power equipment. The rest of this page is more focused on running stuff like TP-Link dual band routers and Ubiquiti AirMax gear on solar which is a different scale of cost/difficulty. | |||
== Low power nodes == | |||
The [[hardware experiments]] page lists some nodes that can be used with low power. | |||
We can probably assume power usage of about 1 watt for most of the lower power stuff but probably not a lot less. | |||
== Solar == | |||
A small 4 watt panel that outputs 5v directly is available [http://www.ebay.com/itm/201493671665 for $14 on ebay]. It comes with a female USB A plug but the plug is of visible crappy quality and it failed after a few uses, however it's trivial to just solder on e.g. a male micro-usb end instead. We haven't yet tested what the actual power output is for these panels over a day of california sun but will do so soon. | |||
== Battery == | |||
If we have the solar hooked up straight to the node then any passing cloud might take it offline. Better to have a small battery acting as a UPS. Since we can use a 5v solar panel why not use a cheap Lithium Ion portable USB battery packs. We've been lead to believe that it will wear out Li-Ion batteries faster if they're kept at 100% charge all the time. We're just going to try anyway and see how long the last. | |||
Some USB battery packs don't allow charging and discharging at the same time. We ordered a selection of the cheaper units and tested them. Here are the results: | |||
* [http://www.ebay.com/itm/321850110492 - 2600 mAh CoolGo pack] - $6.79 - Works! | |||
* [http://www.ebay.com/itm/301573240761 - 2600 mAh No-name "extruded aluminum square" with button] - $6 - Works! | |||
* [http://www.ebay.com/itm/181725452512 - 2600 mAh PowerBank "extruded plastic square" without button] - $3.75 - Works! | |||
* [http://www.ebay.com/itm/252224862952 - 2000 mAh Motorola flat pack with integrated micro-usb cable - $6 - No discharge while charging :( | |||
* [http://www.ebay.com/itm/221974269792 - Cylindrical unit without included 18650 battery - $1.25 - Waiting for it to arrive. | |||
= Power usage = | = Power usage = | ||
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On top of that some electronics are needed for battery charge control. I'm not sure what the price for that is, but probably around $20. And then there's the battery. | On top of that some electronics are needed for battery charge control. I'm not sure what the price for that is, but probably around $20. And then there's the battery. | ||
== Battery == | == Battery == | ||