r/SolarDIY•
FwippyBall

Looking for ~10Ah self-heating LiFePO4 battery for cold-weather MeshCore build

Hello, folks. As the title says, I'm looking for an approx. 10Ah LiFePO4 battery that can self-heat so it can charge in approx. -20C weather. I'm looking to build a solar-powered MeshCore repeater, of which there are many designs for regular LiPo batteries but very few for LiFePO4 ones. None of which use self-heating batteries, which makes me doubt their usability and longevity in cold Winnipeg winters.

A MeshCore repeater using an nRF52840 MCU uses an average of ~25mA with default settings, so I don't need a 200 CAD 30Ah fishing battery, but I can't find any reasonably sized/priced batteries that self-heat. Is anyone aware of any batteries I could use for this purpose? Alternatively, are there any products that I can use that can heat 6-8 LiFePO4 18650 cells if the temperature drops too low?

EDIT: A MeshCore Repeater would be left unattended for long periods of time, so fire safety is absolutely critical. I'm looking into ways that I could add some kind of temperature alarm system to the device, but I don't know how that will turn out.

EDIT 2: This entire exercise may be pointless given the extremely small power draw. Meshtastic has similar power consumption to Meshcore, and here's an article about using Li-On batteries with Meshtastic in super cold temperatures. Thanks to everyone for responding.
https://yycmesh.com/blog/cold-weather-charging

Posted Sep 21, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

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