Power for Starlink?

[LouK]

Struggling to decide whether to go Peplink or Starlink for boat internet- the choice seems to be pay me now or pay me later. Starlink seems to be 110 VAC with many RV’ers modifying the internal modem to add 12 & 48 v power supplies or carving up the dish to power up to do the same. Others, with apparently larger battery banks than I are using inverters. I’m reticent to carve up a new $600 piece of gear first off the bat . I’m surprised that Elon and others have not made a 12v solution for RVs & boats.

Suggestions / Comments- what do you use?

Thanks,
Lou

[Lepke]

My Starlink draws less than 75 watts on 120v. A small 12v inverter on Amazon is under $50. I'd get one 300+ watt. Most also have usb charging. You probably should have a dedicated battery depending on how many hours used.


I have a big inverter and battery bank and go several days w/o charging. Current monthly Starlink bill is $120. I have the round antenna. I've had several wireless and satellite internet providers in the past. They were slower, cost as much or more, and had severely restricted data. The biggest allowance was 3gb/month. Now I can download large software files and stream as much tv as I want.

[bjornfb]

We’ve had both: the Starlink has been more reliable and lower cost per Gb than the Peplink. I had such high hopes for the Peplink but in the end the Starlink just works better. If you don’t have an inverter, you could buy a Jackery: we powered our Starlink off one of those when camping before moving it to the boat.

-Bjorn

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by LouK

Struggling to decide whether to go Peplink or Starlink for boat internet- the choice seems to be pay me now or pay me later. Starlink seems to be 110 VAC with many RV’ers modifying the internal modem to add 12 & 48 v power supplies or carving up the dish to power up to do the same. Others, with apparently larger battery banks than I are using inverters. I’m reticent to carve up a new $600 piece of gear first off the bat . I’m surprised that Elon and others have not made a 12v solution for RVs & boats.

Suggestions / Comments- what do you use?

Thanks,
Lou

I power my Starlink with a $35 pure sine wave 500W inverter. Using a small inverter results in barely any power loss for the DC-AC conversion.

[chubby]

when you guys peplink.. what are you using?


i don't think it needs to be an "or" type of thing..




combining starlink with local wireless options via peplink works well...
(google "link aggregation" or "bandwidth bonding")

well enough that i can video conference daily with staff ...and not have anyone "notice" whenever i'm at anchor in the 3rd world or at home office.

[jordanbigel]

There is no carving up of the dish to use 12v power. If you have your own existing WiFi router (as I did) then you can avoid using the SL router (which is bulky in addition to requiring AC power) with a couple of simple parts available easily - a 12v to 48v DC step-up converter and a POE injector.

12v to 48v converter
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09W9J42M9

POE Injector
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BKV6NYD

No dish surgery required. You are probably confusing the operation which some people do to disconnect the dish's motors and force it to be flat. This is not required if your goal is simply to power the dish from 12vdc.

You do have to cut the ethernet cable which normally goes from the SL router to the dish in order to crimp on a standard ethernet connector since SL uses proprietary connectors, but that does not affect the dish in any way, just the cable.

modifying the internal modem to add 12 & 48 v power supplies or carving up the dish to power up to do the same

Also, you do not need to modify the SL router (not a modem) in any way, mine is stuffed in a locker in case I ever need it.

[SVE]

Originally Posted by chubby

when you guys peplink.. what are you using?

... well enough that i can video conference daily with staff ...and not have anyone "notice" whenever i'm at anchor in the 3rd world or at home office.

Yep, this is my exact setup too. Starlink as my main WAN to a Peplink BR1. My Peplink has 2 SIMs for cell connections. Through the Peplink you can enable 'hot-failover' so if your main connection goes down it enables the cell backup (or public wifi if you have that available). You can also join multiple connections at the same time to increase bandwidth/reliability for video calls or streaming.

Wife and I work full time from the boat with multiple video calls per day. Never had anyone question our connection or that we're not in a house. Might be overkill if that's not your need, but works very well for us.

[Nicholson58]

There are hacks to convert to battery power. You may also disable the motorized antenna tracking.

The designers of the Starlink clearly did not consider the implications/needs of off-grid operation. DC power is mandatory and minimizing power consumption is the holy grail. 150 watts is a lot. Powering down means a later re-boot. The power up cycle is far from fast. They appear as is usually the case with modern electronics, to have not considered the power needs as though the thingy in the wall supplies infinite free electricity. Further, the original unit’s antenna proved perfectly adequate last year in the Caribbean even for anchored boats but they have now required an “upgrade” to the new system using a significantly larger antenna with much higher power demand. The connection fee is higher too. One cruiser streamed football 1000 miles offshore between Hampton, Va and Antigua in rolling seas (old antenna).

All that said though, the users have been very happy with the connectivity. It’s easily faster and 10x more reliable than any island systems.

[shimari]

I'm in the middle of slowing adding a Peplink router with 5G to our Starlink. Overkill, but I often work from the boat and I need a reliable Internet connection.

You don't need to carve up the Starlink antenna or cable if you don't want to do so. Seaview and others have custom mounting options for the antenna. You can use this setup to avoid surgery on the cable:

https://www.amazon.com/YAOSHENG-Pass...0-4513d670b6bc
https://www.amazon.com/YAOSHENG-Rect...ps%2C70&sr=8-2

[Cheyne]

I converted my Starlink dishy to 48/12v with POE and ditched their router for a Mofi 5500 that runs on 12v. Mofi gives me 4 more ethernet ports so I can plug in our NAS which also runs off 12v.

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by Nicholson58

The designers of the Starlink clearly did not consider the implications/needs of off-grid operation. DC power is mandatory and minimizing power consumption is the holy grail. 150 watts is a lot. Powering down means a later re-boot. The power up cycle is far from fast. They appear as is usually the case with modern electronics, to have not considered the power needs as though the thingy in the wall supplies infinite free electricity. .

Or maybe they figured those living off grid would actually have their power requirements sorted out.

DC power is not mandatory - many boats in the 45ft+ range run predominantly 240v/110v
And power consumption is what it is - set up your boat to meet requirements and some.
150 watts is nothing if you a well set up and in this day and age, it's relatively easy and not expensive.

[LouK]

Thanks to all for the insight!

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by LouK

Struggling to decide whether to go Peplink or Starlink for boat internet- the choice seems to be pay me now or pay me later. Starlink seems to be 110 VAC with many RV’ers modifying the internal modem to add 12 & 48 v power supplies or carving up the dish to power up to do the same. Others, with apparently larger battery banks than I are using inverters. I’m reticent to carve up a new $600 piece of gear first off the bat . I’m surprised that Elon and others have not made a 12v solution for RVs & boats.

Suggestions / Comments- what do you use?

Thanks,
Lou

Several cruisers in the Caribbean last season had Starlink. Most were looking at hacks to power directly by DC. Universal compliant was power consumption. Everyone disabled the motorized tracking. Constant east wind at anchor makes this work OK. A couple of big cats with monster solar coped easily.

The system in use is now being forcibly replaced in mobile, marine operation with a larger antenna using even more power.

What seems odd to us is that there appears to have been little effort to make these things efficient. If they intend to sell millions, that’s a lot of energy. The stated intent was for connectivity where internet was poor or nonexistent. These places especially beg for a low power footprint.

[mcon12000]

Mine is powered by a Victron 500 watt inverter which also powers a network switch, TV, PS4, USB C charger and a X-Box.

I’m yet to see anyone report gains in efficiency that would justify the effort and I’ll add I’m not keen on adding items that haven’t been thoroughly tested in a marine environment to the boat.

My vote is a small high quality inverter with the added bonus that if you needed to sell or return your unit to SL it’s intact. I imagine SL is working on a direct DC version as we type and if one is available when it becomes necessary for me to upgrade I’d buy it but I still feel people are overstating the power savings.

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by jordanbigel

There is no carving up of the dish to use 12v power...

Jordan, you post some excellent information.

You may not have heard, as it's a fairly recent discovery, but the antenna itself runs on 12v! Starlink hops it up to 48v to minimize losses in the thin wires of the ethernet cable supplying power to the antenna, but at the antenna they convert it back down to 12v. Someone published a hack where they disabled that down-converter in the antenna & fed it 12v directly. I think this is what the OP is talking about.