davis

bitcoin

Running self custodial lightning is not as painful as it once was, this is my setup.

I run an umbrel node (LND + BTCPayServer) with a reverse tor proxy to expose BTCPayServer (I use the cheapest Lunanode VPS).

I run tailscale on the umbrel node and on my phone, using Zeus to interface with my node from anywhere.

I have just 2 channels with well connected nodes and rarely have issues routing.

Setup Cost: 
- Pi4  (I wouldn't buy this again today, I'd get a cheap micro computer.)
- 1 TB SSD (Might be worth a 2TB if you can get a good deal)

Monthly Cost: 
- m.1s on Lunanode for reverse proxy ($3.5 / mo)

With this setup I can
- Accept payments / tips via the BTCPayServer store (tips.orange.surf)
- Accept payments / tips via LN Address (sats@tips.orange.surf)
- Make payments (From Zeus)
- Manage channels (From Zeus)


All that is missing is NIP57 support from BTCPayServer to accept Zaps on nostr.  

The only issue is the loading speed of the btcpayser, it takes 20 seconds to load the tips page and a further 20 seconds to load a LN invoice. A faster reverse tor proxy, or a more powerful machine running BTCPayServer would help, but tor is probably the bottleneck. I may try using tailscale as the proxy instead.
