thatit.be - /page/2024-06-02-03-20-08.md

Micron Document

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tags: [lora, tdeck, meshtastic, gemini, publish, index]

title: LoRa Radio - LILLYGo T-Deck

I picked up a T-Deck. It looks a bit like a blackberry in form factor, but

currently without a housing. I also picked up some sort of 18650-ish

form-factor batteries to power it.

Flashing meshtastic was weird. The process was done from Chromium. The

[browser based flasher] gives device selection options, then firmware, and then

a dialog to actually do the flashing. The first time I ran it, I failed to put

my device into flash mode. I briefly attempted to flash the wrong device (I

still don't know what device dev/sac0is in Asahi Linux…)

Hypothetically the process for putting the device into flash mode is to hold

down the track ball, toggle the power (or reset it) and hold the trackball down

for 2-3 seconds. Except it was more like 4 seconds, and if I held it longer,

it seemed to not go into flash mode.

Once the flashing completed, then another site was used to configure the

[client]. Under *Config* → *Radio Config* → *LoRa* the *Region* had to be set

in order for the device to actually be able to send and receive from other

devices.

The instructions from the [meshtastic docs] didn't quite line up with reality

here. The default key bindings, at least, any of them that needed the *Fn* key

were not reachable. I had to flash newer firmware. Curiously, the Alpha

version of the firmware I flashed became the stable Beta version less than an

hour after I started playing with the device. I don't know if anything

changed, but I flashed it again, just in case.

Configuring your own device's name is no longer under a *User*

configuration tab as the documentation suggests. Instead you change it by

clicking an editable field in the client which immediately reboots the

device, but does set the value as expected.

[meshtastic docs]: https://meshtastic.org/docs/getting-started/initial-config/

There was no message history for received or sent messages on the device.

Also, I configured a channel to do encrypted messages, but after a reboot of

the device, I could no longer pick that channel as the destination for messages

I wanted to send. Despite that the channel did still work to receive messages,

and the channel still worked to send messages from a web browser via the

client site with the device connected serially.

I hope to get a case for it soon, as it's quite tricky to hold the battery and

the device in one hand while attempting to press keys with the other.

I also have a pair of Heltec WiFi V1 modules that was I hoping one could be

put to use as a relay from internet to mesh, but it wasn't supported by the

flasher and documentation suggests they are being phased out and I should get a

V3 or different device to use with meshtastic.

[browser based flasher]: https://flasher.meshtastic.org/

[client]: https://client.meshtastic.org/

Tags: tdeck, index, meshtastic

[#tdeck](tags-tdeck.md)

[#index](tags-index.md)

[#meshtastic](tags-meshtastic.md)

[index](index.md)

[tags](tags-all.md)

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[2024-07-27 - More Meshtastic Nodes](2024-07-27-22-46-54.md)

created: 2024-06-02

(re)generated: 2026-07-17