Starlink Portability

[Midnightsun]

Starlink has been working really very well so far. FYI, the cable that connects the dish to the router is 75' long. On the boat most will only need 20' or so. I cut the cable hoping I would not ruin it which worked fine. 2 reasons, threading it through the arch would have required a pretty big hole due to the proprietary fittings on each end not to mention it will not fit through a conventional wire gland and I really hated the idea of rolling up 50+ feet of extra cable and tucking it in somewhere. In reality, it is simply a weather proof RJ45 ethernet cable, cat5 or 6. Cut to my preferred length and crimped on new RJ45 connectors, used a RJ45 coupler to clip them together.

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[Midnightsun]

Found this video today! This is worth watching as it describes how to modify your Starlink dish to mount it flat however maybe no so well suited for use on the boat. There are other better ways on the web that seem better suited but have no decided on what I want to do with mine yet.

The really cool part is where he describes how to delete the big, power hungry and limited Starlink router to use a conventional router and POE injection to power the dish using 12v as opposed to 120v. This guy is pretty amazing if you ask me.

Looks like I may have found another project as I already had decided to remove my Intellian dish which will give me room to mount the Starlink in a more professional and permanent manner.

[Midnightsun]

After some more thought I will likely delete the Starlink modem and use the POE injector and 12vdc to 48vdc booster to be able to run it off 12vdc. I will replace my existing Bell Mobility router with a Pepwave Max BR1 which also works off of 12v however it will serve as a LTE modem replacing my Bell unit and also serve as the Starlink modem. This will allow me to use Starlink as a primary and automatically switch (failover) to the LTE portion if Starlink misses a beat for a constant internet connection at all times. Here is a link which explains how the Pepwave Max BR1 can be used.

Why would you want to go this route? You will now run only 1 modem which will cut down power usage quite a bit and you will have a failover function to supplement Starlink for a reliable connection almost all the time. all wifi will be operated from 12vdc as opposed to 110v inverter power which also saves on power consumption.

This also seems to be a nice modification to get the Starlink RV into a small flat package which is much more convenient on most boats. Needless to say, once you mod your dish the warranty is gone. https://star-mountsystems.com/products/ ... link-dishy

[Midnightsun]

Starlink RV was never meant to be used in-motion however it worked well in-motion. That being said they have now prevented the RV dish from in-motion use through a firmware update. This should not affect too many boaters as the cutoff speed is thought to be 10-15mph and we cruise at around 12kph so we will be fine while under way or swinging at anchor. This is also another reason for the Failover installation as if we do go up on plane and lose Starlink, we will seamlessly switch over to LTE.

Starlink does now offer a in-motion flat dish however they want 2,500 US for it and it does draw about 3 times as much as the RV dish when it comes to power consumption. Not really interested in this option as it is also quite a bit bigger in size. https://www.starlinkhardware.com/starli ... otion-use/

[g36]

Thanks for updating, although i thought money is no object we are boaters!!!

[Midnightsun]

Here is another tip. Starlink does draw quite a bit of power when used as is plugged into 120v which implies using an inverter for even more draw. The RV world has converted Starlink to run off of 12vdc which required a 12v to 48v booster and a POE injector and you needed to crimp the network cable in an unconventional way to suit Starlink. A guy in Canada has made a simple all in one solution that works very well. Even less draw if you chuck the Starlink modem and use a Peplink BR mini 12vdc modem. See here.

I did order one of these and will be using it for a full conversion to 12VDC for Starlink. Tested out the the Peplink router yesterday. Works great with the failover feature I previously mentioned so any Starlink dropouts are seamlessly covered by my Cellular plan which would be next to nothing in terms of data since the dropouts are rather small lasting usually seconds. Or if the boat was to be under a cover then Cell data would cover the missing data.