I've been tinkering with this how-to document for a couple of weeks. I realized that I go though the same steps each time I do a consult with someone about getting solar. This document isn't glitzy or polished but it contains the steps I take to specify a system.

Standard terms and conditions may apply, I have not covered all the gotchas but this certainly will get you going in the right direction.

One of our group members has just returned home from a quick trip to Houston TX. He saved a lot of money on shipping by driving there. He has just returned home with 90 580w panels, 5 16kwh batteries and a pair of 12000xp inverters. I can't wait to see this system up and running.... it's a monster. 54kw of panels and 24kw of inverters.

Edit: Panels were $6045.00 for 3 pallets. 93 panels. Batteries were $8800 for 5 of the docan 16kw batts.

Note the distances involved here. And these are 1watt transmitters.

Homemade Liquid Fertilizer - 4 Do-It-Yourself Options.

Its a beautiful morning

Planning 3 sites for meshcore nodes to fill in gap around me. Here's a composite coverage model of three locations that are >100ft up. Brighter red indicates overlapping coverage areas.

Anyone looking for a killer deal on panels....

Two "mesh" networks have emerged.

Meshtastic, every client device can repeat messages. It’s a true flood mesh—messages propagate through multiple paths simultaneously. This provides excellent resilience; even if several nodes fail, messages find alternative routes. The downside? Massive network traffic. Every device receives and potentially re-transmits multiple copies of the same message. De-duplication algorithms try to manage this, but you’re fighting against the basic architecture.

MeshCore takes a hybrid approach. Client devices (what they call “Companion” nodes) never repeat traffic. Only dedicated repeaters forward messages. This means:

Far less network congestion
Lower power consumption on client devices (not constantly re-transmitting)
More deterministic network behavior
Easier troubleshooting (you know exactly which repeaters are in the path)
The trade-off is you need to strategically place repeater nodes. But honestly? That’s good network engineering anyway. You want to know where your infrastructure is. Repeaters can be solar powered and placed in trees on or grain elevators.

I got this little mesh radio based on Heltec T114 module. It is compact and I charged the battery full on in once. It's been a day and half and the battery is down to 88%. Compare this to the heltec V3 or V4 that lasts 12 hours on a battery. https://a.co/d/06JDeCmR

At this point, the only reason I can think of to get a heltec V3 or V4 is if you need something to do with wifi like a "observer" node.

This is pretty cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLjdo7nX0d0