After building my Medium Priced Solar Node, I wanted to explore cheaper options. I wanted to be able to build nodes to give to friends or community members to place in advantageous locations, and not feel like I was losing $100+ if it doesn’t work out. If you’ve been around the Meshtastic community for more than a month, you’ve almost certainly heard of the Harbor Breeze Solar Light hack. This involves using the solar panel, solar management board, battery, and enclosure from a low-cost solar light available in the USA at Lowes for less than $10.

I’m calling this a “medium priced” node because I didn’t really budget and just bought parts as they became necessary. There are also many examples of cheaper nodes, such as the Low Priced Solar Node (Harbor Breeze). The low cost node depends on the availability of the Harbor Breeze solar lights, whereas this node uses more generic parts that will almost surely be available in the future. For now, here’s a reasonably reliable node that costs around $110 for just the essential parts.