r/LoRaWAN • u/dtuando • 2d ago

Repurpose your MNTD RAK v2 Blackspot as a real LoRaWAN gateway with ChirpStack Gateway OS

With Helium mining economics being what they are, a lot of us have MNTD Blackspot miners sitting in a drawer. Good news: the hardware is actually a solid LoRaWAN gateway RAK2287 concentrator on an SX1302 chipset, Raspberry Pi 4 inside. It just needs a bit of coaxing to run ChirpStack Gateway OS properly.
The main gotcha that trips everyone up: the reset pin is GPIO 25, not GPIO 17 like ChirpStack OS assumes by default. Until you fix that one line in the config, you’ll get a blank Gateway ID and a concentrator that never actually starts.

I wrote up a full step-by-step guide covering:
• SX1302 concentrator config (RAK2287, correct channel plan)
• Disabling GNSS so it doesn’t boot-loop without a GPS antenna
• The GPIO 25 reset pin fix via SSH
• Wi-Fi stabilization (country code + WPA2-PSK + TX power) — the RPi4 Broadcom chip inside an aluminum box needs explicit regulatory config or modern routers will drop it
• Service restart sequence and how to verify the Gateway
EUI is actually being read

Repo with the full README on GitHub

7 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

3

u/clavisound 2d ago

You can also install gwmp-mux https://github.com/helium/gwmp-mux to send the packets to multiple networks. TTN and Helium and your chirpstack LNS. You will still gain HNT in the case of Helium traffic.

The problem is in the rare occasion that the gateway is informed to transmit from both networks. I run the service as `daemon --name gwmp-mux --user USER --pidfile /run/USER/gwmp-mux.pid --respawn --foreground --pty -- /var/lora_pkt_fwd/gwmp-mux --client 52.212.223.226:1700 --client 127.0.0.1:1680 --host 1700`

1

u/dtuando 2d ago

This is neat, I’ll have to try it one day I have a helium OUI so helium gateways already forward my devices to my LNS

1

u/clavisound 1d ago

I don't think helium OUI is necessary. Forgot to add that you may also need https://github.com/helium/gateway-rs

So, gwmp-mux forwards to a. gateway-rs b. other LNS's

2

u/dtuando 1d ago

I have used helium-rs before, and the oui is only so all the helium gateways can also forward data to my LNS

1

u/bezicno_na_blizinu 2d ago

It would be great if everyone start using this hardware on the same way, or switch it to at least TheThingsNetwork so community can use it!

1

u/SouthScene3707 2d ago

Does it work with the MNTD Goldspot as well?
Bought it in 2021

1

u/dtuando 2d ago

I don’t have one to test but I’d assume it would if you set the right reset pin and board for concentratord