LoRaWAN on Nico Maas

GeeekPi RPi 4G Hat for RAKwireless RAK5146 USB

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 17:31:59 +0000

In 2021 I started playing around with the SX1303 based RAKwirless RAK5146 USB LoRaWAN concentrator in mini-PCIe form factor ( 1, 2 ). Back at the time I used the RAK2287 Pi Hat which - even though the website states otherwise (“Note: RAK2287/RAK5146 Pi HAT is compatible only with the SPI version of the RAK2287 and RAK5146 LPWAN concentrators.”) is actually compatible with the USB version of RAK5146. In the second post I even want so far to hack the RAK2287 and bridge the PPS (Pulse Per Second) output of the included GPS onto the RPi GPIOs so that I could turn the RPi into a precise GPS NTP server - and I even added an I2C/“poor-mans-QWIIC connector” to it.

Getting LoRaWAN working with STM32WL55 and Radiolib

Sun, 28 Jan 2024 17:24:03 +0000

Elektor was looking for some ideas regarding their STM32 Design Contest - and so I thought, why not putting the excellent work of the guys behind the RadioLib to good use and getting this board working in LoRaWAN (and it was easier than I thought :)):
https://www.elektormagazine.com/labs/getting-lorawan-working-with-stm32wl55-and-radiolib

RAK11300 - Getting it to work with Arduino-Pico and RadioLib!

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 16:08:49 +0000

Intro

About a year ago I got some RAK11300 modules - which are a nice combination of an RP2040 alongside a SX1262 radio on one module - designed a breakout board - tested it - and quickly shelved it. Reason was that this module was somewhat Arduino compliant - as stated - however only with RAKwireless Arduino mbedOS Repo. Alongside of it being a bit… hacked together, it had the issue of not supporting any low power modes for the RP2040 - making it run on both cores at full tilt and consuming batteries in no time. Not the best thing for a portable/battery powered sensor system, I guess?

[PiAndMore] TinyGS Presentation

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 13:52:51 +0000

Here is my presentation to TinyGS @ PiAndMore 13 (University of Applied Sciences Trier, 22.04.2023)

TinyGS_PiAndMore13.pdf

Videorecording can be found here

Taming the RAK5146 / SX1303

Sun, 08 May 2022 09:21:28 +0000

Its been a while - but good things come to those who wait :) .

Trying to work out a new system you’re unfamiliar with can be quite a challenge. In my case I got my first LoRaWAN concentrator along with some CubeCell HTCC-AB01 and tried to get them to work. It turned out - it was quite hit and miss. On the one hand, the firmware support for the RAK5146 with USB, GPS and LBT was not really ready yet - on the other hand, the CubeCell Arduino code has a fatal flaw with the preamble size so that those cannot join a LoRa network if used in EU868 MHz Band (the perfect fix by 1rabbit is linked as well!).

LoRaWAN with RAKwireless RAK5146: The SX1303 in the field, a rocky start

Sun, 10 Oct 2021 09:11:36 +0000

Setting the scene

Working with the guys over at balena comes with some perks - including the peer pressure of getting into new technologies and trying them out. My go-to person this time was balena Developer Advocate Marc Pous - who is not only no stranger to soldering - but also deeply rooted in the LoRaWAN field (and he is also doing balenaHub projects for LoRaWAN applications 1, 2).

I heared about LoRaWAN a while back, when I was working with Sigfox - but never really gave it a try, other than trying to run a basestation for a certain satellite using LoRa for its communication.