BUILDLOG.md

mesh-cam — build checklist

Tick these in order. Each phase isolates one failure point, so if something breaks you know it's in the phase you just did — not somewhere in the whole chain.

Phase 0 — Parts on the bench

• Heltec LoRa 32 V3
• Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense (+ camera ribbon seated)
• microSD card (<=32GB, FAT32) in the XIAO Sense expansion board
• 3x jumper wires, antennas attached to BOTH LoRa nodes (never power LoRa w/o antenna)
• Good DATA USB-C cable (not charge-only)

Phase 1 — Flash Meshtastic (Heltec V3)

• Web flasher (flasher.meshtastic.org), select Heltec V3, Erase flash = ON
• meshtastic --set lora.region US (match on every node)
• meshtastic --info boots, shows a node — record hex !id and decimal num: ____________

Phase 2 — Serial Module on the Heltec V3

• serial.enabled true, serial.mode TEXTMSG, serial.rxd 33, serial.txd 34, serial.baud BAUD_38400
• Bench test: USB-serial adapter -> GPIO33+GND, type a line @38400 -> appears on the mesh (proves the Serial Module works before the camera is involved)

Phase 3 — Flash the XIAO camera firmware

• pio run compiles clean
• pio run --target upload (hold BOOT if needed)
• pio device monitor @115200 shows no "Camera init failed" / "SD init failed"

Phase 4 — Wire the two boards

• XIAO D6/GPIO43 (TX) -> Heltec GPIO33 (RX)
• XIAO D7/GPIO44 (RX) -> Heltec GPIO34 (TX)
• GND -> GND
• Wave at the camera -> MOTION at cam1 shows on the mesh (phone/2nd node)
• Adjust MOTION_FRAC / PIXEL_DELTA if too noisy or too deaf

Phase 5 — Gateway (Cardputer ADV at home)

• WiFi: network.wifi_enabled/ssid/psk
• MQTT: mqtt.enabled true, mqtt.address <broker>, user/pass, mqtt.json_enabled true
• Channel: --ch-index 0 --ch-set uplink_enabled true (and downlink_enabled true)
• Same lora.region as the field node
• Record ADV decimal num (for downlink from): ____________

Phase 6 — Verify the bridge (CLI, before HA)

• mosquitto_sub -t 'msh/#' -v shows traffic
• mosquitto_sub -t 'msh/US/2/json/#' -v shows decoded JSON
• Field node's MOTION at cam1 text appears in the JSON stream
• Record exact topic (channel + gateway id): msh//2/json//!____
• mosquitto_pub a snap downlink -> XIAO saves a photo -> SAVED /snap_N.jpg comes back (see ha/mosquitto-cheatsheet.md)

Phase 7 — Home Assistant

• Mosquitto broker add-on + MQTT integration up
• meshtastic/home-assistant installed via HACS; nodes auto-discovered as devices
• Paste ha/configuration.yaml (fill REGION / CHANNELNAME / GATEWAY_NODEID), reload
• binary_sensor.cam1_motion flips on real motion
• Paste ha/automations.yaml (fill region + decimal node id), reload automations
• Paste ha/lovelace-card.yaml; "Take photo" button triggers a real snap

Phase 8 — Field deploy

• Field node on battery/solar, weatherproofed, antenna clear
• Confirmed range from deploy spot back to the home gateway
• COOLDOWN_MS set sane for duty cycle in your region/band
• Photos retrievable (pull SD, or plan a WiFi-in-range dump later)