Love the sense of humor along with the explanations. Thank you for the work you've done to test this out. I've been wanting to build one of these types of trackers for a while now but was worried about the signal strength as I need to Tx/Rx about 3km, the surrounding area has a few rolling hills but for the most part is not too hilly. The biggest obstacles are trees so hopefully I can make this work for the distance I'd like. I think I will take on your advise and use the mono-pole type pyramid antenna and slap that on the house, I'll have to re-watch Andreas Spiess's youtube channel about making a mono-pole antenna, which is another great place to get information.
Great project!! I was looking for a diy tracker for my cats, and I love the idea of using Lora and the esp32. I might try to do one myself and see if I can reduce the size of the tracker somehow. Loved the video!🤗
To straighten copper wire, place one end in the vice and chuck the other end in your drill. Pull slightly while you turn on the drill on and watch the magic happen. A few seconds of running is all you need. Achieves the same result as stretching, but a 1000 times easier. BTW, I built a similar, but “more refined” ground plane antenna for my 915 Mhz Lora gateway. I have 3D models if you have a 3D printer. I measured 1.1 SWR on my antenna, so it amazingly efficient. Also, consider connecting your Lora gateway to The Things Network. TTN take care of the repeater with other TTN gateways in your area. Nice work, I enjoyed seeing you go through similar challenges as I did...but you had more fun with it.
That wire twisting thing sounds cool. I'll try that next time. I do have a printer. It is "3D" but only prints in one dimension on plain paper. A real 3D printer is on my list ^_^ Thanks for watching!
This is exactly what I was looking for!...but didn't even know it. No seriously, I arrived at the first video through a series of related videos for something totally unrelated to this. The funny thing is that at my place of work we have about 1000 radios that staff use to communicate with each other, but they are expensive and they keep taking them home. So for years now we've been kicking ideas back and forth trying to find a cheap way to track them. I had given up. This is it man, you did it! The only problem is gonna be concealing it inside the radio itself. Do you know if there are smaller versions of the components you used? I'm new to electronics but I where there's a will there's a way.
Components are getting smaller for this type of thing, nothing super miniature yet but I'm sure it will come. Keep in mind that the range is only 1.5km or so for a normal urban environment.
You put your repeater right across the street from the public library? I thought I recognized the road you were on but once I saw the street map I realized where you're at. I grew up there! :D Small world!
Nice to see you do the Quarter Wave, however, you need to look at this on a Vector Network Analyser before you start going to higher gain antennas. That circular trap goes right on top of the one turn trap. There are better antennas that provide lower angle of radiation, read more effective gain, than that colinear. Those better antennas can provide a massive bandwidth that exceeds the requirements. That increase in bandwidth and lower angle of radiation, more narrow towards the horizon, dramatically increases the range.
This project is awesome, I really love it. I wonder how how hard it would be to output the GPS data into an app like the Android Tactical Awareness kit (ATAK). Hopefully to be able to download offline 3d maps and track my dog when he chases a deer.
This is awesome. How does the receiver tell the difference between a relayed packet and an original packet? Or it doesn't? If the receiver receives both, does it just add both GPS points to the map?
Hey Greg! I've been developing the system further over the past few months. Originally I just tacked on a '*' to the front of the relayed messages but now I have every device transmit a unique ID that I can use to sort out what to do with each signal. The real work for sorting out messages is at the server and it checks to make sure the message is not a duplicate. The relay also keeps track of the last message it received so that you don't end up with messages bouncing back and forth between relays. This whole covid catastrophe has put a real damper on video production....I'm working on it though. Expect a few more in this series soon.
@@dork3nergy please do! Sounds like you are turning this into a mesh network. It would be super cool if you did multiple trackers or environmental sensors or even chat devices
Hi DorkEnergy, Thank You for this two part TUTE. This could be applicable to a drone application,for a 'fly away' drone it seems,,other than the size factor would still be a bit too bulky for a foldable drone which is what i am wanting to achieve. A bulky fixed arm drone this setup would be fine. is there any way of 'shrinking' the overall size of the 'node' setup? Would really like to try this package for this. Thanks again.
I've half started working on miniaturization of the node. Of course it will involve a whole crap load of things I've never done before including designing and creating a PCB. Check back once and a while for any updates. You'll probably be interested in the next video in this series which will be coming out shortly.
I'm looking to so something similar for my beagle, searching for a homemade option to live feed Gmd GPS tracking collars for hunting as they're expensive for no reason and have giant monthly payments that I could widdle down to $5 a month for a GPS SIM card from the local phone simple Mobile. Ideas are appreciated
Great work!!! I wonder how is LoRa efficiency indoor because I want to make an Indoor Car Tracker for parking building by measuring RSSI of LoRa. And remove GPS chip cause GPS works poorly indoor. (Maybe adding an altitude meter for measuring the current floor?) Did you think this is a good idea? I will be so glad to hear your opinion :) Thank!!!
Using the RSSI for location is also a good idea but I can't say how it would work in practice. Obviously it will be be tough for the LoRa signal to get through the concrete floor/walls. I like the altitude meter idea but it won't do much good unless you can get a signal on the receiver end. Parkades are tough environments for radio signals. Best thing to do is toss together a couple of units and see what the signal strength is like. If you decide to try it, keep me posted.
@@dork3nergy Thanks for your advice. After few hours research on google, I think it's really a bad idea by using the RSSI for location just like you said. Finally, I found there will be a new Bluetooth 5.1 that supports AoA / AoD. (maybe still tough to get through concrete...but very accurate) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jSDtUOQXJmo.html I guess I will wait for these new boards coming for retail. And there is a good introduction of direction finding. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-N8rZIAHxAH4.html Really appreciate you kindly reply!!
What are you pushing the GPS data too? I’m wondering if there’s a web interface or an app that easily excepts this type of data so I can be tracked close to live. Thanks
The ESP32 is hooked into my wifi network and the GPS data is pushed to a server computer through a socket. Once it's on the server machine, the data is used to update a webpage that generates a Google Map. The Google Map webpage updates itself automatically so it is effectively live. Does this make sense?
Yip, that's the place. Nice little board. It's good someone was smart enough to put a link to the thing. Next step in this project is miniaturization of the node!
How long is the runtime with the 200mah battery. I'm looking at building something similar for our cat, so the lightweight but long runtime tradeoff comes into play.
I believe I get in and around 2 hours runtime but but but but... much of that is determined by the transmission settings. The tracker I have in operation reports a location every 7 seconds. If you up time that to say, every 20 minutes and put the arduino alseep between transmissions, you can save a huge amount of battery! I believe you can also sleep the GPS but when it wakes up it would take time to reacquire satellites. Hope this helps.
Not really but... Here's for the node: www.mobilefish.com/images/developer/lorawan_rfm95_arduino_pro_mini_large.jpg (Toss your GPS tx wire onto one of the free pins) Here's for the Gateway: i2.wp.com/randomnerdtutorials.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/LoRa_ESP32_Wiring.png Should get you started. (PS sorry for the late reply)
With a 200mAh batter you get a solid 2 hours of continuous use transmitting every 12 seconds. You can seriously up that time by transmitting less often and sleeping the components when not in use.
No Problemo. Lora -> ProMini ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ GND -> GND 3.3V -> VCC DIO0 -> 2 DIO1 -> 3 NSS -> 10 SCK -> 13 MOSI -> 11 MISO ->12 Reset - > 5 When you setup the software on the ProMini, you'll need to tell it where you hooked up NSS, Reset and DIO0 : #define ss 10 #define rst 5 #define dio0 2 Party On Dude!
