N-fuse mPCIe Concentrator Card ( SX1301 / SX1308 )

Today I received my brand new concentrator card from n-fuse. Later I will try to get it working with a mPCIe to USB adapter and an Orange Pi. In the next few days I’ll post a guide.

You can buy it here: https://www.n-fuse.co/devices/LoRaWAN-Concentrator-Card-mini-PCIe.html

img_20180821_142209618

2 Likes

What is the lead time of the product ?

They will ship immediately from Germany if its on stock

Got it working for the Things Network. Next need to find a nice enclosure and tweak the software a bit.

IMG_20180821_162734
IMG_20180821_163000

2 Likes

this is a pico gateway, the steps are:

cd /home/pi
mkdir lora

cd /home/pi/lora
git clone https://github.com/Lora-net/picoGW_hal.git
cd /home/pi/lora/picoGW_hal
make clean all

cd /home/pi/lora
git clone https://github.com/Lora-net/picoGW_packet_forwarder.git
cd /home/pi/lora/picoGW_packet_forwarder/
make clean all
1 Like

Made a guide at hackster.io

5 Likes

Can you measure the power consumption of this setup?

@Roeland54 I measured around 4.5 watts all together ( Orange PI + concentrator board )

As an addendum, please check out this Pico Gateway build, also based on the n-fuse LoRaWAN Concentrator Card LRWCC-MPCIE.

IMG_0046
IMG_0047
IMG_0049
IMG_0052

You can plug this into any Linux PC and turn it into a gateway as described in the hackster guide linked above.

All Parts are available here.

1 Like

The n-fuse LRWCCx-MPCIE (together with a mPCIe to USB adapter) now supports a Windows Application called “PicoGW UI”. With this you can set up a Gateway (also TTN compatible) under Windows quickly. There is a ZIP file with the software and a user guide downloadable on the product page.

1 Like

Hi fewi, excellent guide, with a little of changes that took me away several hours I managed to make everything work with a pi zero W. Nice job! :grinning:
If you want to see the result, in the next few hours I will publish some material on the twitter of TTN Calabria e Cilento that you can find here

Hi @Italque, will you be posting the changes and how to wrt getting it running with RPi0W on the forum? :wink:

1 Like

Perfect. Also nice to hear that my guide is helpful for other people.

1 Like

As requested by @Jeff-UK , I have published the main guidelines for using the nfuse concentrator with a Pi Zero W and I hope it can help those who approach the project. Obviously the steps related to the command line vary according to the OS used with your SBC. Most of the problems have occurred because of a poor power supply. Please have a look here

where ? :wink:

In the linked article :grin: (unfortunately the time available is not enough to list the individual steps on Raspbian but I hope to write a more detailed guide soon), the guide of @fewi is more than good. We could not understand why it was not good at the beginning, but I can assure that most of the malfunctions are due to poor power supply (concentrator that is not recognized or stops working). Energy saving and a good power supply are the key points. It may seem silly but it isn’t.

2 Likes

Thanks for the update & pointers. In the comments to the OPi build article you mention additional steps/issues/problems wrt RPi0W build vs OPi - its heads up on these delta’s that would be very useful to stop others having to rediscover/resolve if you can post please. Good job…wallet opening ready for next build parts BOM buy :wink:

1 Like

Nice build using the n-fuse concentrator card https://thomasflummer.com/projects/lora-gateway/

3 Likes

It might be obvious, but does the Pico Gateway support downlink messages and/or ADR?

Or just supports uplinks?

Yes of course. It does not lack any feature the “normal” design has. In fact it has advantages in terms of stability as the time sensitive stuff is done by an MCU.

1 Like