User talk:Alanmcrae
Welcome to Open Source Ecology! We hope you will contribute much and well. You will probably want to read the help pages. Again, welcome and have fun! Marcin (talk) 02:09, 3 February 2018 (CET)
Off-Grid Internet Relay Station
PROBLEM:
Jeff Higdon had a common problem for homesteaders in deeply rural areas: no internet service easily available. No DSL, no cable, and definitely no fiber. Satellite internet is notoriously slow with bursts of very high latency, so not a great choice. What to do?
ANALYSIS:
Jeff did some research and found that a local ISP had several fiber-connected microwave relay towers in the mountains around his homestead, but climbing a tree next to his house and looking around he saw that he didn't have a clear line of sight to any of them. Walking 600 feet towards a neighbor's property, he found a clear line of sight to one of the towers and a clear line of sight to his house. How to relay the microwave signal from the mountain to his house?
SOLUTION:
Jeff needed to build an off-grid, solar powered, internet relay station.
Jeff Higdon: If you look closely there are two antennas here. One is the receiving dish from my internet provider, the other is the flat antenna mounted in a T-post pointed towards my house to relay it. This setup consumes 1 amp per hour. When fully charged, my two 6 volt T105 Trojan batteries will last about 5 days with no charge from the sun.
With these antennas, everything requires line of sight and a pair of antennas, one broadcasting and the other receiving. Depending on how wide of an angle the broadcasting antenna will broadcast, you can set up multiple receiving antennas at different locations. You can also set up relays to bounce the signal around any obstacles to line of sight.
This is what I’ve done. The internet provider has a fiber optic connection that he broadcast from the roof of his building to at least three separate towers many miles away. My place is in a Valley and can’t see a tower, so 600’ from my house I set up the relay. The dish receives the signal from the tower which is line of sight and several miles away. I then run a cable a short distance down the hill and have a second antenna that is broadcasting line of site to my storage building.
On top of my storage building is a third antenna that is receiving that signal. A Ethernet cable runs from that antenna underground to my trailer house inside to a POE (Power Over Ethernet) injector that is supplying power to the antenna, cable comes out of that and goes into my WiFi router that then distributes the signal through the house.
SYSTEM DIAGRAM:
RESULTS:
Speed Test: Currently 1.2 Mbps download, 0.89 up on the speed test I just ran. I pay for 1 meg down, 0.5 Up, so they are giving me more than I pay for. Usually it runs around 2 megs down, .75 up. When we tested it at install it was doing 5 Mbps down which at the time was the maximum speed of the tower. I think it has since upgraded to be able to do 10 down, which cost $75 per month. However I have the cheapest plan which is $37/month. I know it is capable of much more than I can purchase but I don’t remember what that is.
COMPONENTS DETAILS:
ANTENNAS:
Jeff Higdon I used ubiquity antennas. I had my internet provider program them for me. The dish is a 2.4 GHz Ubiquity nano beam M2 400 I believe. I did not find the model on the unit but when I looked it up I think that is the one. I know the flat one is the M2 2.4 GHz model.
I was going to purchase them online but when I decided to go through the internet provider to program them I let him purchase them and make a little profit so I don’t have the paperwork on them.
Ubiguity nano beam dish M2 400
Back of dish
Ubuiquity M2 flat directional antenna
The antennas require a POE injector to Power them at 24volts dc. The 110v injector uses about 1 amp to do this, and that is what I use on the house end. However, I wanted the absolute least amount of power used on the relay site, so I used a dc-dc buck converter to take the 12v incoming voltage and change it to 24v and at the same time inject that 24v over an Ethernet cable to the receiving antenna. A second Ethernet cable comes out of the receiving dish antenna and runs underground over to the flat broadcast antenna to power it.
The advantage to using the buck converter/POE injector is it only draws 1 amp total for two antennas instead of 2 amps. That doubles my run time on the batteries.
I had the internet provider adjust the power settings so I had plenty to broadcast and receive but no more than I needed. That saved some on power usage.
The antennas will broadcast through trees but it degrades the signal some, particularly when the trees are wet with rain or snow. I cleared my trees so there is no interference.
SOLAR COLLECTORS:
This solar panel mount is made from discarded metal angle iron shipping crates used to ship Pratt and Whitney aircraft turbine engines. I welded it together and made it have three positions of angle, winter, spring/fall and summer. Quick clip pins make it very fast to change the angle. The two supports are made from bed frame angle iron. We had a 75-100 mph wind and it held up well.
SOLAR CHARGE CONTROLLER:
A solar charge controller is a voltage or current controller to charge a battery bank and keep the batteries from overcharging. It directs the voltage and current coming from the solar panels to both the batteries and the load. Generally, 12V solar panels put out in the ballpark of 16 to 20V, so if there is no regulation the batteries would be damaged from overcharging. Most battery storage devices require around 14 to 14.5V to get completely charged. The controller also has to provide continuous power to the load (the antennas), while keeping the batteries topped off so that when clouds or sundown drop solar electric output to zero the batteries can supply power to the antennas.
Docooler BSV20A Solar Charge Controller
With short circuit, overcharge, over-discharge protection; suitable for solar energy powered equipment.
THE BATTERY BANK:
Here is a close up of the 15 amp fuse holder that is on the positive side of the incoming solar. I tried automotive fuses first but they blow quickly. These can take brief surges one will get. I would prefer a dc breaker on a 3d printed DIN rail like Marcin has, but I have to get the 3D printer going first.
I purchased this from Backwoods Solar for $24, part number O-FB15.
POWER METER:
Here is a picture of the voltage meter I use to monitor my battery bank. I purchased it off of eBay, $8.98. Model number MA 927. 12V and 24V. Front of meter. I don’t have it programmed to give the battery level, just the voltage.
It is now available on Amazon for $15.28. GEREE Waterproof DC 12V 24V 36V 48V 60V 72V 84V 96V Acid lead/Lithium polymer/Lithium iron phosphate/NiMH Battery Capacity Indicator DC12V-96V Digital LED Tester Voltmeter Monitor. See https://www.amazon.com/GEREE-Waterproof-phosphate-Indicator-DC12V-96V/dp/B01CU07GN6
Great little meter, works with Ni-Cd/Ni-MH, 2V Lead Acid, Li-Ion/Li-po, and 12V Lead Acid. Meter is defaulted to Two 12V batteries but can be programmed to other setups up to 96V. To Program the unit hook it up to your power source, locate and hold the button on the back until "1-U" is displayed, release and press again, now "2-b" is displayed. Hold the button and it will scroll through "1.2", "2.0", "3.7", & "12"; release the button when your battery/cell voltage is displayed. Allow the unit to return to level display by not touching it for ~5s. Hold the button until "1-U" is displayed again, then press the button twice to "3-c" on display, this is number of cells/12v batteries, hold the button again until your setup is shown and release and allow to return to menu. Meter is now setup. You can now calibrate it if it is not close enough for your application, this is the "1-U" menu option, hold the button again when in this mode and voltage will go up/down (release and hold again to change direction). You can also set the display "4-d" to be %, V, or alternating by holding the button in that setup mode. The meter has light buffering to steady the readings!
See the Q&A on Amazon product listing for programming instructions
BUCK CONVERTER & POE INJECTOR:
Tycon Power 12v-24V DC To DC Converter And PoE Injector
The Tycon Power TP-DCDC-1224 DC to DC converter is a low cost high reliability solution designed to supply 24VDC Power-over-Ethernet from a 12V or 24V battery system. Integrated PoE injector applies the regulated 24V DC to the Ethernet cable. The input voltage must be between 9VDC and 36 VDC. PoE power is supplied the shielded RJ45 output jack and sent to the antennas. Power is supplied on the unused Ethernet pins 4,5(V+) and 7,8(V-). Surge, short circuit and overload protection is built in. Power output is rated at 19W.
CONCLUSIONS:
There are several things I would change. My solar panels are too small, I’d go with a 300 watt panel or two for the winter, and also the charge controller low voltage cutoff is 10v and I’d like one that is programmable to cut off at 12v or even 12.2v so it would extend the life of the battery. Also a third thing is I’d go with 4 T105 batteries to make sure I could get through a cloudy period.
The panels I have I purchased for $30 and were installed around 1979 on a tree in top of a mountain. They work awesome in the summer, but on overcast days they put out zero Watts. The newer 300 watt high voltage panels that use a MPPT controller will put out a few Watts even when it is overcast.
FYI: In case you wonder what the box is made from, I recycled some discarded construction signs made from 3/4” outdoor plywood. I purchased a gallon of mismatched green Rustoleum paint for $5 at the local hardware store and used that on the outside. It blends in with the trees pretty well.
Hello, I just read your journey to make that wireless internet relay station. I'm not sure if you heard of them, but the Free Network Foundation may have some useful stuff, or at least be an intresting read. Your project reminded me of some of their work (you may even want to post it there)
Anyways I just wanted to chime in with that, and great job!
