how do you set up a node for an altcoin?

[leowonderful]

I dunno if this is in the right section or not, so if it isn't, feel free to tell me, or report so it'll be moved. Please understand I am going to sleep after I post this, thanks!
I have a solar powered laptop running windows 10 and I just made my own altcoin for fun( why? to find blocks. The joy of finding blocks is just too great). How do I set up nodes? I have no idea how to.

[Panadacoin]

Just starting the wallet connect to internet is creating a node. If your laptop is on local ip 10.0.0.2 and your desktop is 10.0.0.4 in config file on desktop put addnode=10.0.0.2 and same on laptop coin.conf you put addnode=10.0.0.4. You do this while wallets are not started. After you start them they should find each other. 

[owm123]

You dont need to make you own coins to mine them at will. You can setup privet test networks to do it, e.g, for Monero its easy:

http://moneroexamples.github.io/private-testnet/