Solar Powered WiFi Repeater

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- Frank Keeney
  
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posted
17 years ago

Thu, May 11, 2006 9:40 PM

Popular Science just published an article from my friend Mike Outmesguine:

"The promise of Wi-Fi is freedom-the ability to bring your laptop or PDA away from the anchor that is your desk and into your life. With most wireless routers, however, your life had better stop at around 300 feet, and forget about heading outside. Between the noise generated by other local wireless devices and physical obstacles like furniture and walls, chances are your Wi-Fi signal is little more than a whisper by the time it hits your backyard. So I built a box that can pick up that signal and boost it another

200 to 300 feet."

Solar Powered WiFi Repeater Overview:

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Frank Keeney

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- William P.N. Smith
  
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posted
17 years ago

Fri, May 12, 2006 2:12 AM

Interesting theory, but unless you turn it off when you aren't using it, or you get 10 peak solar hours per day, you are into a negative power budget. Also, you are using a large percentage cycle on your

7AH battery every day, so it's not going to last very long.

Double the solar panel and the battery and you might have something!

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- John Navas
  
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posted
17 years ago

Fri, May 12, 2006 3:58 PM

In practice I've found this a problem that can often be easily overcome, sometimes by location of the wireless access point, sometimes by means of better antennas. Do some war driving and you'll find lots of usable wireless signals outside of homes.

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- Moe Trin
  
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posted
17 years ago

Sat, May 13, 2006 3:44 AM

What is this thing "life" that he writes about? Isn't that the part of the day where I'm _not_ sitting in front of a computer? (Sorry, I spend over 9 hours a weekday and "some" additional time during weekends with this stuff. Me sitting around the pool, or puttering about in the garden definitely does NOT involve the Internet.)

Old guy