The following are instructions for making your very own Solar-Powered Wilderness Wireless WiFi Access Point and Web Server. When you are finished, there will be an access point (AP) with a name (SSID) of your own choosing. When you or someone else connects to this AP with a phone or computer, a captive portal page will open, displaying a web page of your own design, not unlike the captive portal pages of some paid public wifi networks. This personal area network (PAN) is not connected to the internet and does not provide a route to any place on the internet. This AP is in essence its own internet. After connecting, all http requests are resolved to the internal address. The information contained here has been pulled from many difference sources and integrates the work of many others without whose work this project would not be possible. Please see the references.md file for acknowedgements and links to sources.
A comprehensive list of materials is provided as an Adafruit wishlist that can be accessed [here]() You may try to source materials from other places, but there is no guarantee the project will work as expected. This project involves soldering, so a basic set of electronics tools is required. Here's a general list of useful things:
This information is provided free and without warranty. I offer no guarantee that this project will work as stated. The author or any of the included sources are not responsible for any wrongdoing, damage, transgression of rules, laws or regulations. Use at your own risk.
CC Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial Share-Alike
Solder Capacitor on Charger
Solder JST connector
Solder Headers on the Feather
Charge Battery
! WIN users might have an easier time using NodeMCU Flasher instead of setting up python, etc. It can be found here
python --version in the terminal. You should see something like Python 2.7.10 returned. If not, skip down to Python installation.python --version in the terminal. You should see something like Python 2.7.10 returned. If not, skip down to Python installation.NodeMCU-FW-CaptiveIntraweb.binFlash Firmware: With Python, esptool.py and VCP drivers now installed, flash the firmware using this command in your terminal:
esptool.py --port /dev/tty.SLAB_USBtoUART
write_flash -fm dio
-fs 32m 0x00000
NodeMCU-FW-CaptiveIntraweb.binThe device you are flashing is usually /dev/tty.SLAB_USBtoUART on OSX or something like COM3 on Windows. Replace /dev/tty.SLAB_USBtoUART with the correct port if different.
Communication with the Feather NodeMCU firmware can be done via a Serial Terminal Application like CoolTerm (WIN/OSX) or Screen (OSX/NIX). A useful application is ESPLorer which provides a FTP-like interface for manipulating files on the Feather. Since we are going to use the Feather as a Web Server, this seems like the best tool for the job. ESPlorer application is a cross-platform Java application. You can get it from the Download it from the tools folder in this repository or alternatively download it here. Since ESPLorer is a java application, you need to have a recent version of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed on your machine to use it. Try to open the ESPLorer.jar file. If it doesn't open, you probably don't have java installed. The JRE is free and can be downloaded here.
This is your own access point and webserver. You have control over the name of the accesspoint and the content of the web page. In keeping with the idea of wilderness wireless, think about what you might name your AP. Does a wilderness wireless network use a particular language? Does it have to be intelligible? Think about stumbling across a wireless network in the wilderness where there are no others around. What kind of content might you find in this network? Is it text, an image, perhaps just a color?