rns.recipes

I'm coming from meshtastic, where it's quite easy to set up an autonomous solar node with something like a seeed solar node. I want to know what people think is the cheapest and easiest way to set up an autonomous solar lora transport node in reticulum?

I'm thinking just buying an old cheap android phone and running sideband or meshchat on it is not a bad place to start. Put it in a waterproof case, attach it to a heltec or something, throw a solar charger with usb connection, and you have a very cheap and easy setup. Can it be done better?

I know there's the variants of reticulum that can be installed on esp32s etc, but these seem quite fiddly in terms of interface. Then I also have to worry about batteries, BMS, solar managment etc.

This may help?

https://not-a-number.io/2026/down-the-lorabbit-hole-from-meshtastic-to-reticulum/

This build is designed as a meshtastic node, but I see no reason why you can't replace the board or flash different firmware. It uses pretty inexpensive parts (~30$ USD) and seems decent, but I've yet to make one myself. I would probably use a slightly higher DBM antenna to try to get a bit more range out of it.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7135669

I would love to hear from someone with some actual experience.

I think "the cheapest" and "easier" way also has to do with your scope and environment. Both terms may differ as implementation technique. To spare some details as i can't write much at this moment but overall easiest would be to buy a 6v panel, an heltec t144, v3/v4 or any heltec with solar charger support and a lithium battery with bms; plug everything together in a waterproof box and run RTNode or microReticulim FW. Overall cheapest may be using daylora(https://github.com/CharlesCNorton/daylora), generally doing the same thing but switch the battery with capacitors and regulators. These methods may not cover all your needs tho.