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---------------------------------------- Little Free Library, part 3 January 15th, 2019 ---------------------------------------- The batter test is complete. I picked up a solar powered battery pack off Amazon and plugged in the pi, then left it in the dark to see how long it took to drain. It lasted just over 80 hours with no external charging. That's fantastic! The unit claims that it can fully recharge in about 7 hours of sunlight. Given various seasons and overcast days, rain, etc, that should be plenty of buffer to allow the pi to remain perpetually active. With that, there's only 3 things left to do: - Update the captive portal screen to indicate to users that they should: 1) disable their mobile data, and 2) browse to http://littlefreelibrary. The actual domain doesn't matter, but that one seems easy enough to remember. The mobile data thing came up in testing as a barrier to IP rules running on the Pi that would normally redirect you to 10.0.0.5 and serve the web content. Captive Portal may trigger, but I need a real redirect of a real mobile browser for downloads. If you're reading this and making a project that doesn't need javascript or downloads, just do it IN the captive portal. It's much easier. - Build a weatherproof enclosure. The plan is to 3D print something that can hold the battery and pi, or just the pi glued on the battery, or a big glass box, or whatever. Something that will survive in the woods and not be blocked by snowfall. - Take pictures and "blog" the full build instructions so others can replicate and share it. This is a cool project and I hope others can build upon it.