The little Meshtastic node inside of my ThinkPad T420s is surprisingly good (one of the antennas measured quite well for the frequencies used, so I wired it in. I assume it was meant for GNSS? Or UMTS?).
The PCB is a quick custom design I whipped up in EasyEDA to connect an ESP32-S3 with an SX1262 radio chip. It uses the USB pins of the MiniPCIe slot originally intended for a WWAN modem in this laptop :3
@Doridian Oooh that's slick! Dang, making me muse about that for my laptop x3
@KayOhtie I can send the PCB schematics over if you want. :3
Not that it really is anything complex in the first place x3
@Doridian The above super post shows a #Meshtastic node inside a #ThinkPad #T420s #laptop and uses a #PCB designed using #EasyEDA to connect an #ESP32S3S3 with an #SX1262 chip using #USB pins of #MiniPCIe slot intended for #modem #LoRa Would allow for a #reticulum #rnode too I guess. Lovely work.
How cool is that !
@Doridian Would you be able or willing to share the circuit you designed here?
@adingbatponder Sure thing. I used EasyEDA (Std) to design it. It seems KiCad can import it quite successfully as well via "Import Non-KiCad Project -> EasyEDA (JLCEDA) Std Backup" and then pointing it at this ZIP.
Also, this whole repo which adds support to meshtastic for my PCB (just defines the pinout pretty much): https://github.com/Doridian/meshtastic-firmware
The only non-obvious thing about the PCB design: You need to bridge either +3V3 or +3V3AUX to VCC on "H2" (+3V3AUX is powered during standby on some laptops, +3V3 is never, hence the option)
@Doridian Fabulous. Thank you very much indeed!
@adingbatponder One thing I realized I forgot: If you do end up ordering this, or making one: MiniPCIe cards require a non-default height. I think it was 1.0mm total PCB height, but do cross-check me on that.
@Doridian Aha. Thanks. OK. I did not realise they can be ordered. I must confess I tried the easyEDA route and installing the software was not possible in view of the provenance of the code and the non FOSSness of it so I could not check it out. I used the online site and your kindly provided zip of the pcb data. I am hoping to go via kicad but got the fright of my life about how that works. I think I need to go back to baby steps. The site seems not to have the parts BTW.
@Doridian unfortunately they are missing the core 1262 so seems no order possible from them.
@adingbatponder Yeah, I did solder the PCB myself, don't know if anyone sells the Core1262 for pre-assmbly. But the rest is fairly standard components.
If you do end up obtaining one of these, make sure it is the right Core1262 (HF or LF, depends on your jurisdiction, US is HF, EU I think would be LF)
@Doridian Oh, heck, this is cool~
This would be a great way to repurpose that Dell E6440 laptop I have sitting around.
@Doridian I've been meaning to design a board like that! It would fit into various Helium miners/Lorawan gateways, which conveniently tend to come with an external LoRa-suitable antenna
Aug 7, 2026, 2:00 PM@Doridian
Stumbled over this post today, bookmarking it.
Not sure how Lora / MeshTastic / MeshCore is going to end up.
It's quite popular now in .be, also among ham radio enthusiasts.
But then again, so was DMR and that has completely nosedived 😕
@Doridian Okay that's cool as FUCK! I want one!!
@Doridian If it's anything like my X220, the unused antennas are for a cellular data modem (3G/4G, whatever came after GSM.. UMTS?). Nice hack!
This might be a stupid question... But is this set up so you can run meshtastic software on the computer, or is it "just" to power/run the esp32 and then use it with a phone via bluetooth?
(Nice either way btw!)
@baardhaveland Well. Sort of both? The meshtastic browser app can connect over serial. And this card exposes the esp32 usb to the laptop which exposes serial. But I've never ran the full radio stack on the laptop (even though some developments in meshcore might make this a fun experiment once/if they got full KISS radio mode)
So it runs like the normal phone app but does communicate wired.
Or wireless if you pair with the esp32 via Bluetooth of course.
@Doridian Sorry for digging up this old toot but I love this idea. What’s the best way to rebuild what you’ve made?
Is your PCB design somewhere available for reusing?
@thinkpadmuseum Absolutely. Here's the EasyEDA export: https://github.com/Doridian/meshtastic-firmware/releases/download/pcb/MiniPCIELORA_d1dfdf68ba6c4ee6a88708359c46a948.zip
And here's the meshtastic board support commit if you need that: https://github.com/Doridian/meshtastic-firmware/commit/456b54f268a41c3aa057d6c928d815f3f818e43c
@Doridian Wow, that looks got - thanks for sharing. It should be possible to port the PlatformIO definition to MeshCore, I think (I plan to use this instead).
Will try to rebuilt this. Also have some ThinkPads with WWAN (T400s, T410, T410s) - would be a great fit for your lovely project.
@Doridian Nice! I did the same with a T500, but used a RAK19713 which worked out of the box. The UTMS antenna had great transmit but caused like 40% #meshcore receive errors so I swapped in a flat stick-on 915 antenna. https://docs.rakwireless.com/product-categories/wislink/rak19713/datasheet/
@anthill Interesting! For you use it with #Meshtastic or #Meshcore? Can’t find useful information about firmware support for the latter.
@stdevel Meshcore for now, I'm just experimenting a bit. The 19713 card just adapts to a RAK4631 which has official firmware support from the official flasher.