Anyone hang nodes in tall trees?

3 months ago by CorrectAlias to c/meshtastic

I live in Western Washington, and we have very tall (130ft+) Douglas fir everywhere. I have a few on my property and I'm coming up with a plan to hang a node relatively high up.

I have two options to do this safely. I can either use an arborist sling to shoot a rope maybe 60ft or so up, and then pull a heavier rope with the node up. Or, I could drop some fishing line and a weight from my drone and do the same thing, except possibly even higher up.

Has anyone done something like this? Am I overthinking this, or missing something?

clif 9 points 3 months ago

I'm not smart so I climbed the tree as high as I could, strapped a fiberglass pole with a pulley to the trunk for extra height, then hoisted the node up via the pulley.

It "worked" but I didn't fully clear the canopy so the solar charging was not great. Controlling the position/angle of solar cells is difficult when hoisting a node

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CorrectAlias 3 points 3 months ago

Do you think this case would help with the positioning?

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clif 3 points 3 months ago

That's a really cool idea. I just had two small solar cells on one side of the case which made it very directional. I'd toyed with the idea of building a little "housing" that was fixed to the pole where it could only enter in the correct orientation but I got lazy/impatient and just ran it up.

Seems like that case would help a lot. My first worry was series vs parallel, but that is helpfully called out in the README (with these three panels in parallel) and if they were in series it'd likely be WAY too much voltage (depending on the charge controller).

As long as the mounting location gets decent sun from at least one angle for a good part of the day, that looks like an awesome solution. I'm bookmarking it for future builds, so thanks : )

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ThePantser 6 points 3 months ago

I would go with drone just because it would be more accurate and get you right where you want it. I haven't tried it but I have given it thought.

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hereiamagain 5 points 3 months ago

I used a drone to hang a leader line for a high rope for my nephews swing. I'm talking like 60-70ft up. It was an amazing swing with a massive pendulum effect.

Highly recommend using a drone for this, just don't get it stuck up there.

Edit: at my last apartment, I did put a node about 35 feet up a pine tree. I used a 10ft PVC pipe, half inch, and lashed it to the center trunk so it stuck out the top a few feet to get solar. Worked really well.

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db0 3 points 3 months ago

Planning to also put a solar charger with it?

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CorrectAlias 4 points 3 months ago

Yep, that's the plan! This is what I'm going to put up there, ideally.

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janus2 3 points 3 months ago

out of curiosity do they tend to have stable enough branches to where things hung on them can be expected to stay put for several years?

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CorrectAlias 3 points 3 months ago

Yes and no - Doug firs do tend to sometimes drop limbs in wind storms, especially the weaker, thinner branches. It's not that they drop all branches though, it's sort of luck of the draw.

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czardestructo 2 points 3 months ago

I have wasted a lot of time on this topic.

Drones are a crap shoot, the higher you get the more the weight of the fishing line drag and cross wind will mess with you. Flying through the branches then, more importantly, flying DOWN is impossible without the fishing line getting caught in the rotors. If you use a drone consider it a consumable.

Ive tried aggressive sling shots but its a ratio of the weight of what youre shooting relative to the drag of fishing line. Use too much weight then it won't fly high. Use too little and then you dont have enough to pull your line down the other side of the branch back down to earth.

Ive considered using a crossbow but lost interest.

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CorrectAlias 2 points 3 months ago

I agree, except I'd be using a drop system on my drone, so there'd be no need to really fly down unless something goes incredibly wrong. I'm hoping I wouldn't even need to fly through any branches as well. I'd definitely do it on the calmest day possible, of course.

The issue I have with the arborist sling is that I'd need to practice a lot to be able to hit my target, along with what you mentioned.

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czardestructo 2 points 3 months ago

Correct on the practice. Ive spent way too much time looking like a dolt under my tree trying a bean bag toss, sling shots, etc. All of the methods require a lot of technique and patience. I consider myself pretty tenacious so ive wasted 10s of hours on this project and I regretted it.

In the end I did end up using a drone, I got extremely lucky and used a fishing reel attatched to a rod I hammered into the ground. Soon as I got it over the branch it for jammed up with fishing line as I assumed and I reached down and closed the reel bell. Then I slowly lowered it down to earth.

I got lucky that the weight of the drone was enough and the fishing line didn't snag.

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hereiamagain 1 point 3 months ago

When I did it I used an FPV drone flown LOS, in acro mode with the arm angle turned off. Once I was over the branch, I just killed the motors and let it hang upside down. Once it settled, I armed it, and "flew" it straight back to the ground, using the rotors to pull the rope over the branch. It worked a treat 👌

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vk6flab 1 point 3 months ago

This is exactly how we put up amateur radio antennas.

Some things to consider:

how is it powered
how do you get it down
how do you stop it from killing someone on the ground when it eventually comes down
how will foliage growth affect the range
squirrels and birds will likely take an interest
waterproofing

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CorrectAlias 4 points 3 months ago

Thanks. To answer this:

3 small solar panels, using this case.
I plan on leaving the rope or fishing line attached so I can bring it back down if needed
Luckily it's in a forest on my property, and the branch it would be on is more likely to kill someone, but it's good to consider either way
It'll definitely have an affect, although I'm not sure how much. Maybe I can choose a part of the branch with little foliage?
They definitely will
I plan on resin coating the case and using silicone around the panels. We do get a ton of rain here, but hopefully it wouldn't matter too much if it died from rain since it'll be relatively cheap

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hereiamagain 1 point 3 months ago

Stinking squirrels LOVED my end fed, no matter how I tied it over the branch, they'd find a way to bring it down inside of a year. I used a big plastic clothesline pulley once, because the tree moved in the wind, and they chewed through the pulley 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

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vk6flab 1 point 3 months ago

Clearly you're not feeding your squirrels enough roughage 😁

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