EN for Enable?
I know, but why, this operates on power up - data comes through as expected, I got a pulse on the pps pin with my meter too - not sure what is left to enable 
Nice quote. If you look at the instructions for the resin.io builds you will notice for the RPi3 it mentions:
RESIN_HOST_CONFIG_dtoverlay pi3-miniuart-bt
This does exactly what is mentioned at the end of the quote so ttyAMA0, the full UART becomes available for the GPS. For GPS use I would recommend to always use the full UART, not the mini one.
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I did say we were lucky with a temperate climate in Ireland did I not?
root@xxxxxxx:/opt/ttn-gateway# /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp
temp=22.9’C
The snow that came from last night’s storm doesn’t seem to upset the RAK831 + Resin.io image on a Pi sitting on the bottom of my antenna pole, only the spare heat from the Pi and RAK pcb’s to keep warm!
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Hi folks,
recently i got the green V1.3-ch2i RPI Zero Shield for RAK831.
So I just need to buy me a RAK831 module .
So I searched Ebay and Aliexpress but only found chinese sellers. Ofcourse I can order one from China, but big chance for import-duties/handling-fees of maybe up to 40 euro and waiting a few weeks.
So I would prefer ordering it in UK/Germany or somewhere else in EU.
Is anyone aware of a seller that delivers from within EU ?
I give you little chance that you can buy it locally in UK or Germany.
I suggest to order a RAK831 here: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/RAK831-LoRa-LoRaWAN-Gateway-Module-433-868-915MHz-base-on-SX1301-Wireless-Spread-Spectrum-Transmission-range/2805180_32832894046.html for some €106 including shipping.
In the Netherlands one has to pay additional 21% VAT and €13 handling fee, around €36 additional costs (or nothing if you are very lucky).
In case you could buy it locally in Europe you would have to pay the VAT anyway.
"and waiting a few weeks": You can’t have both cheap and fast. 
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@ bluejedi
Thanks for the info, guess I have to go the china-way.
I just added the English version of my document on building a gateway based on a RAK831 and an Orange Pi zero to my github repositry. See [https://github.com/Edzelf/RAK831-LoRa-gateway].
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Is the RAK831 module 100% compatible with Lorawan, or only with LoRa?
Very interesting! Quite funny as I just fabbed some backplane PCBs using an onion omega as well (Went with the Pin version).
Did you have trouble cross compiling the packet forwarders? Think I had to also re-compile a C library for one of the functions.
100% compatible with LoRaWAN.
@Ryanteck it was not completely straightforward to make OpenWrt package makefiles for packet_forwarder and lora_gateway, and it’s still WIP because packet forwarder has an ugly ../../xxx style path reference into the sources of lora_gateway.
It’s only the legacy forwarder for now, I haven’t found the time yet to try packaging @kersing’s MP version, altough I would like to do that.
But I have documented and published how to build a ready to run Omega2 Linux LoRa gateway firmware image from scratch. Improvements are welcome
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Excellent. Will have a look. I think my binaries work but am awaiting 2 voltage regulators to arrive still. I’ve cheated by compiling all on my linux box and then uploading the binaries to github which I then clone on the Onion Omega - https://github.com/ryanteck/onion-lora-backplane
Will try to package @kersings version after I know the hardware works.
Here’s my backplane attempt, needs lots of testing.
Went with the THT Onion due to it being slightly easier to get hold of. (£12 in the UK inc PNP)
Gone for a passive POE Power supply method to keep it cheaper and easier. One reg down from 9-12V to 5V and the other for 9-12 to 3V3, Chose the onion for ethernet capabilities.
Should be able to have either RAK831 or ic880a soldered in.
Total cost is around £25 inc the onion. So around £150-175 including one of the two gateways.
5 Likes
did your RAK survived ?
It seemed to be just fine until I read your post and checked the resin.io dashboard…
12.03.18 00:28:33 (+0000) Restarting application 'registry2.resin.io/ttngw/…'
12.03.18 00:28:36 (+0000) Application exited ‘registry2.resin.io/ttngw/…’
I won’t get to look at this for a day or so but it looks like the gateway is a bit sick! Keeps restarting the application and crashing/halting/exiting after 3 seconds. I can’t seem to start a SSH session either to see if the Pi is even running OK!
SSH reconnecting…
Spawning shell…
rpc error: code = 2 desc = invalid character ‘e’ looking for beginning of value
Error response from daemon: Container 5a…2 is restarting, wait until the container is running
SSH session disconnected
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Anyone here looking to build a RAK831 totally for grids - I am planning to make one with 3G cellular connection, a battery, power management circuit and a solar panel.
Possibly using one of these?
USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger
Hi @coeus, I read your question to be “… totally OFF grid …”. I work with small off-grid systems. A TTN gateway with cellular backhaul will consume quite a lot of power, probably 4-5 watts. This picture shows an RPi + iC880a gateway being calibrated for off-grid use with a 24VDC solar+battery system.
This system is consuming 24V x 0.15A = 3.6 watts, and that is before the cellular backhaul is added.
I strongly suggest that you build your gateway and backhaul system and check it using a good DC lab power-supply in order to understand the power consumption. Then do the sums to calculate how much solar power and battery capacity are needed for your solar availability, seasonality, gateway availability, etc.
I’m at 57deg North with about 6hrs of low sun in the winter and frequent periods of bad weather and run my systems with a 4x margin to avoid over-stressing the batteries or me. That ends up at a 30W solar panel and 100Ah of battery at 12V or 50Ah at 24V. Big and expensive! Reliable!
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I need to put the RAK831 in a enclosure and need to remove the SMA connector and I’ve done as follow but not my favorite and easier way to do.
But I see there are 2 diversity interface iPEX connectors on board, anyone knows how to use it (I know in this case that I’ll need 2 antennas, one to receive and one 2 send). Any example configuration of lora gateway json.conf (it it’s in there) to use these 2 instead of the SMA one?
An I think it’s possible we’ve got the smallest outdoor full GW ever 
And with big @BoRRoZ favorite OLED for fun
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This should help
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Thanks,
not so easy, need to open, and switch position of 2 x 0603 capacitor. Risky
I will keep to remove the SMA connector and put a cable adapter like on picture