well… it works if you use the Pi Hat. It doesn’t work on the mPCIE because that is USB based 
keep us updated!
But Marc, if you put the RAK5146 USB into the mPCIE Slot of the Fin… shouldn’t that work? Please correct me if I am wrong here (got too long of a day and actually laying in bed right now… XD) - but the mPCIe Slot on the Fin should have USB laid out, because its the same interface WWAN cards like UMTS or such use. So… I think I tested that and got it working, but I am now really tired and unsure… Sooo… If I am doing something wrong, let me know :'D (and good night!)
@nmaas87 what i tried to say, is that i think that @barryjump tried to connect the SPI LoRa concentrator on the balenaFin mPCIE. That shouldn’t work! However maybe i missunderstood him
BTW guys i saw some weeks ago the balenaFin 1.2 and i really liked it 
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Thanks for all the info @nmaas87
@mpous what I meant was that I had a RAK2287 SPI version which I couldn’t get to work in the Fin’s mPCIE slot. I spent some time thinking I mixed something up with the reset pins in some customization of the Basicstation code, but then when searching for answers discovered that SPI wont work on the Fin.
So I purchase the RAK5146 USB without much consideration (it’s the newer model after all) but then discovered the SX1303 isn’t very well supported yet.
Maybe I should have ordered the RAK2287 (SX1302) USB instead? @mpous aren’t you running the RAK directly in the Fin’s mPCIE slot? I hope you don’t tell me no matter what the Fin will require a HAT.
TBH I only runned cellular modems on the Fin’s mPCIE! I dont have USB LoRa concentrators to test 
Ha, I made some incorrect assumptions I guess. Maybe I should send you mine, since I might not find much use for it unless someone smarter than me can get it working first.
well… i wouldn’t be able to run it in EU frequencies! LOL @barryjump
i’m sure you will find a use to it (buy the RAK 2287 Pi Hat )
Whoops, hadn’t considered that.
The problem with using the HAT for a Lora concentrator is that it means I can’t stack the Sixfab PowerHat and the Sixfab LTE HAT then
It’s either LTE, Lora, and power management (and 5 hrs of battery backup)… Or just Lora and LTE.
@nmaas87 RAKs repo looks very useful, but seems to rely on the legacy packet forwarder. Did you get it working with Basicstation?
A favor @mpous could you check w the Fin team to confirm if a RAK2287 USB card would work if used directly on the mPCIE? If so, I’ll have find a place for this 5146 to collect dust and order the 2287 USB. Would rather do that knowing it will work however…
Here are some pics of what I’m trying to get working.
Basically a wireless, battery powered, balenified basicstation with LTE backhaul… If only I could get the most important part working… Lora in the mPCIE.
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The main problem is that semtech when they made the basicstation repo they didn’t focus on USB, only on SPI. Not sure why. So let’s team up to build a contribution on the balena basicstation @barryjump @nmaas87 @xoseperez @ronyvargas ?
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I’m in…
Does RAK5146 USB version works with the RAK2187 Pi Hat?
I don’t have a RAK5146, let’s see what can I do for that…
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Both. I remember that I added the RAK5146 USB to the Fin’s mPCIE Slot - and jumper-wired another M8Q GPS modul to the Fins GPIO Pins at the same time. And the external mPCIE to USB Adapter is just a breakout modul for mPCIEs USB lanes for normal WWAN to USB Port - nothing specially made for LoRa or RAK. So, yes. It did directly work for me on the Fin mPCIE without using a HAT. (But as you correctly said, the SPI version would never work that way).
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Oh damn, I would love to test that 
TBH I started with the SX1303 / RAK5146-USB as my first LoRa concentrator ever, which was quite a rough start, considering this modul was only considered for OEM use by RAK at that time (which I did not know) - so it was also hard to diagnose anything. I have not yet understand the difference between those - but I guess the official firmware from RAK only has this lora_fwd_pkt service or so running / my guess is that the repo I linked is the main dev repo of RAK and they built all their offical firmwares from that. So I will need to read up on the differences. I am more than willing to help out with testing, but I must admit I have nearly next to none time budget as I got a lot of 24/7 services until mid/end of january. Might be that I get some spare time on christmas, but tbd.
It could be. I think Jose wanted to send me one of those, if I get this correctly it should work with both SPI and USB, but you would need to attach some mini USB connector on the Hat to your RPis USB… But please be cautious, thats just what I read and never verified. I wanted to test it myself, but I am still waiting on Jose …
Got it. Well at least I guess I could try to test with the packet forwarder. Basicstation & Packet Forwarder will both get you your lora packets to the network server, but Basicstation is a newer, more feature rich method. It feels like packet forwarder is being abandoned in general however. For example, I’m using AWS’ new-ish LoraWAN service as my network server (nice to not have to worry about managing the LNS) but it requires the newer Basicstation format. Which is a bit of a roadblock for the 5146.
Encouraging to hear you got the 5146 working in the Fin’s mPCIE. Would you be willing to share your repo to jumpstart some tests on my side?
@mpous Maybe the fin 1.5 (why not 2.0?) will support SPI on mpcie? 
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A thanks for the information, I will take a look.
I would gladly share my repo with you, however, I did not yet balenafy it.
I really just used their repo on a filebase, as it also includes TTNv3 uplink and Chirpstack.
They got an installer there which does rollout different files regarding the chosen target, so to balenafy it, we should think about how to include this in a setup routine, e.g. by using the environment flags which will do this and trigger on frist “bootup”. I’d like to have one image for all boards (because they seem to differ very little) instead of one image per board and connector. So I’d have to think about how to include this first in a neat way.
Sorry, would have wished to give you something ready, but it is not there yet.
Regarding the SPI at mPCIE, I am fairly sure that this will not happen, as sad as it sounds. RAK just “abuses” the mPCIE connector and the SPI lines are not part of the regular/compliant mPCIE setup. And I guess balena would like to stick to it. However, I have not checked the position of the SPI pins on the RAK boards, so it could be that those are in a reserved space (meaning, not used/left blank). In that case, balena could make an isolated SPI switch which could switch the relevant pins to the mPCIE socket via a jumper or something like that. That would need to be researched with its pros/cons and the need to really make this switchable, so that even non-compliant WWAN board (e.g. using reserved pins pulled to ground) would not make any hassle or introduce errors/problems. Just bouncing @bucknalla @anujdeshpande and @ntzovanis here, because they might find the idea interesting. And also link them to a RAK pinout: RAK5146 WisLink LPWAN Concentrator Datasheet | RAKwireless Documentation Center
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