Test Results: Starlink on a Sailboat Underway

[Peregrine1983]

So excited to receive our Starlink in a couple of weeks. If it's as good as it looks and sounds on here, we'll be able to stay on the boat indefinitely and work remote.

One question - I'm wondering if I need the direct connect cable to be hard wired. Looks like you guys are getting great speeds over the wifi, but I need a very consistent 60-80mbps to work. Should I spring for the direct connect? And if I direct connect, can my wife still use the wifi or does it disable it?

[shimari]

Originally Posted by Peregrine1983

One question - I'm wondering if I need the direct connect cable to be hard wired. Looks like you guys are getting great speeds over the wifi, but I need a very consistent 60-80mbps to work. Should I spring for the direct connect? And if I direct connect, can my wife still use the wifi or does it disable it?

You'll likely get the square dishy which does not have an ethernet port. You can order an ethernet attachment/dongle from Starlink (they're learning from Apple sadly). That will allow you to direct connect and I believe your wife can still use the wifi from the Starlink gateway. I'd try just using the wifi first though.

[SeeMonstrEd]

You don't need the hardwired connection for speed if you have a dual channel wifi card in your computer. The 5ghz channel on the router is fast enough.

The two problems you may have:
1. The starlink does still have some drop outs from time to time where there is no satellite in range for a few seconds. This will get better as they launch the rest of the constellation. Currently it only happens once or twice a day that I have noticed. Your milage may vary depending on where you are.
2. Dishy takes a lot of power. 100-110w on average 24 hrs a day. I have it hooked to a small 400w inverter and it is draining my batteries much more quickly that my previous wifi router and land based WAN receiver. I have a 12v to 48v transformer and 48v PoE power supply that I have to wire up to see if it consumes less power than the inverter converting to 110v and back to 48v in the Starlink router.

[Peregrine1983]

Thanks, Shimari. I’ll wait and see. Sounds like the wifi will most likely be fine.

[shimari]

Originally Posted by SeeMonstrEd

2. Dishy takes a lot of power. 100-110w on average 24 hrs a day. I have it hooked to a small 400w inverter and it is draining my batteries much more quickly that my previous wifi router and land based WAN receiver. I have a 12v to 48v transformer and 48v PoE power supply that I have to wire up to see if it consumes less power than the inverter converting to 110v and back to 48v in the Starlink router.

You must have the circle dishy (v1)? The square dishy (v2) appears to only require about 50 watts (although the peak is higher when the motor is used).

[Peregrine1983]

Originally Posted by SeeMonstrEd

You don't need the hardwired connection for speed if you have a dual channel wifi card in your computer. The 5ghz channel on the router is fast enough.

The two problems you may have:
1. The starlink does still have some drop outs from time to time where there is no satellite in range for a few seconds. This will get better as they launch the rest of the constellation. Currently it only happens once or twice a day that I have noticed. Your milage may vary depending on where you are.
2. Dishy takes a lot of power. 100-110w on average 24 hrs a day. I have it hooked to a small 400w inverter and it is draining my batteries much more quickly that my previous wifi router and land based WAN receiver. I have a 12v to 48v transformer and 48v PoE power supply that I have to wire up to see if it consumes less power than the inverter converting to 110v and back to 48v in the Starlink router.

Thanks. 1-2 dropouts a day isn’t bad - I deal with that already at home on a cable hard wire setup. Even a few more dropouts would be OK to be honest. I do have a dual channel card.

I see someone on this thread hacked the power supply to take a straight 12v. That’s something I’d consider doing later.

In the meantime, I plan to run it off my 2000w modified sine inverter - which has always been fine for my electronics, but has anyone had any issues running the system off a modified sine?

I have a 500ah house batt bank and 600w solar and do not plan to run the unit 24/7, only during the day when I am working.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Peregrine1983

Thanks. 1-2 dropouts a day isn’t bad - I deal with that already at home on a cable hard wire setup. Even a few more dropouts would be OK to be honest. I do have a dual channel card.

I see someone on this thread hacked the power supply to take a straight 12v. That’s something I’d consider doing later.

In the meantime, I plan to run it off my 2000w modified sine inverter - which has always been fine for my electronics, but has anyone had any issues running the system off a modified sine?

I have a 500ah house batt bank and 600w solar and do not plan to run the unit 24/7, only during the day when I am working.

You can’t run electronics from modified sine power without risking damage. When this has worked for you in the past it only means you have been lucky.

[Peregrine1983]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

You can’t run electronics from modified sine power without risking damage. When this has worked for you in the past it only means you have been lucky.

Even with a rectifier inline? I find it hard to believe that 6 years of using laptops on a boat without issue has been "luck."

EDIT:

I'd be fine to upgrade to a pure sine inverter if it's really needed, but I thought most electronic power supplies were all rectifiers anyway.

I'm curious if anyone has the power supply specs on the starlink.

[AKA-None]

A rectifier is not going to smooth out a modified sine wave
Possibly an appropriate sized filter may but you’d be changing the vendors engineering for your own
Let us know what your circuit looks like and what parts you used

[stormalong]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

You can’t run electronics from modified sine power without risking damage. When this has worked for you in the past it only means you have been lucky.

Originally Posted by AKA-None

A rectifier is not going to smooth out a modified sine wave
Possibly an appropriate sized filter may but you’d be changing the vendors engineering for your own
Let us know what your circuit looks like and what parts you used

Interesting posts. I have been running everything from power tools to computers on a modified sine wave inverter for the past 30+ years. A very old Heart 2000.

The only problem I have ever had was when the load was not enough to switch the inverter from standby to operate.

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by stormalong

Interesting posts. I have been running everything from power tools to computers on a modified sine wave inverter for the past 30+ years. A very old Heart 2000.

The only problem I have ever had was when the load was not enough to switch the inverter from standby to operate.

Stormalong, we have essentially the same inverter, a c.2001 1,500W Heart Interface inverter/charger that puts out a 115vAC modified square wave. If you put a scope on it, it's pretty square, as that's a fairly easy circuit that doesn't generate much heat (which is wasted power).

But Jedi's right. The peak voltage is nowhere near the 170v that a real 120vAC sinewave gets to. Most electronics, especially those that work internationally, convert the incoming AC to DC (using that peak voltage) then high-frequency AC, & finally to the correct DC that the electronics wants (typically 19vDC for laptops). This lets them get away without needing a heavy transformer.

The problem is that without the 170vDC peak voltage, the power-supply will struggle to get to the correct voltage for the computer. If your inverter is a 220v (nominal) inverter, there should be plenty of voltage for a computer power supply. But a 115v (nominal) modified square-wave inverter often won't have enough voltage for cheaper electronics without robust power-supplies.

Having said that, the only thing that hasn't worked for us is a c.2001 speed-controlled Dremel (which I traded to my father in exchange for his ancient single-speed Dremel). But our computers use dedicated 12vDC->19vDC power-supplies, so we don't have to pay the inefficiencies of running the big inverter.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

A rectifier is not going to smooth out a modified sine wave ...

A rectifier WILL smooth out an AC waveform, into a pure DC straight line.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by GordMay

A rectifier WILL smooth out an AC waveform, into a pure DC straight line.

Oh no it doesn’t. To get pure DC you need to stabilize and filter the h@ck out of it. Rectified signals as attached

[goboatingnow]

Modified sine wave is generally fine with modern switched mode power supplies common on most modern electronics. Mine works with everything on board , laptop, printers, tv , food processor , mixer , power tool battery charger. I’ve yet to find anything that had an issue.

Modern SMPS are not sensitive to the peak incoming ac signal at all.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Oh no it doesn’t. To get pure DC you need to stabilize and filter the h@ck out of it. Rectified signals as attached

Doesn’t a [relatively] simple LC choke filtre attenuate [most] of the AC ripple, from a rectifier?
[pity me, I’m a long time out of school]