MeshFlipper: A Flipper board for Heltec V3/V4 Meshtastic/Meshcore boards

[stray smelt]

MeshFlipper

Heltec V3/V4 Module for Flipper Zero

This is a GPIO expansion board to use the ESP32-based Heltec V3/V4 LoRa modules with the Flipper Zero. I decided to make this project as I was reluctant to purchase LiPo batteries for my Meshtastic/Meshcore modules, and will just use my Flipper for power instead. This board also contains serial communication for use as a regular ESP32 board.

Since these are ESP32 modules, they are compatible with ESP32 apps such as WiFi Marauder along with being Mesh networking modules.

This is my first PCB and CAD project, so feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I hope to make a 3D Printed case and possibly software such as a Meshtastic client for Flipper as well as possibly multi-booting the ESP32.

I have made a working prototype with a protoboard at my university makerspace and it works quite well!

GitHub Repo

Made with ❤️ in Canada

- Nova

Also any recommendations for added capabilities would be appreciated! I was toying with the idea that there can be some environmental sensors that can be used with either the Flipper or shared to the mesh!

[serene atlas]

This is awesome! I think a client software would be really cool, I’ve seen one other similar project for meshtastic on the flipper but it seems to be abandoned and the software doesn’t really work for sending messages

(This https://www.reddit.com/r/flipperzero/s/IvZRhlfLaQ)

[tulip zodiac]

another day another flipper used as a powerbank

itll last a few hours if youre lucky, flipper has a tiny battery and esp32 is notoriously very power inefficient

going for a nrf52 based meshtastic module would be heaps better

https://harukitoreda.github.io/Meshtastic-Experiments/Battery-Runtime-Tests
https://harukitoreda.github.io/Meshtastic-Experiments/LoRa-Boards-Power-Measurements
https://harukitoreda.github.io/Meshtastic-Experiments/LoRa-Boards-Comparison-Table

besides that yeah making a flipper app to interact with meshtastic would be cool, then it wouldnt be just a powerbank

[agile fractal]

ooh I am very interested in this!

also yeah, definitely use something nrf52 based, the nrf52840 is really powerefficient

[stray smelt]

I will definitely take a look since it also uses a V3. I believe I saw that earlier but didn't know the state of it

[stray smelt]

Yeah I am aware lol, I was just using what I had on hand. Also such that it can be used as a ESP32 Wi-Fi Marauder board such that it can be dual purpose. I will look at NRF52 later on but held off since it didn't have wifi iirc.