Test Results: Starlink on a Sailboat Underway

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by GordMay

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]

No it’s all a function of load current. After rectification you have capacitor which acts as an energy source during the falling AC signal. This capacitor isn’t acting as a filter. The size of the cap and the load current results in an AC ripple on top of the DC

[goboatingnow]

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.

As I said this is not the case with most modern SMPS based power supplies. In fact I would now say it’s unusual to find something that doesn’t work on modified sine. I’ve certainly not found anything so far.

[John_char]

And here was I thinking there were several new posts about Starlink. Silly me. [emoji6]

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by GordMay

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

This is misleading at best and wrong at worst. It depends upon how you define "rectifier". If you mean a well-regulated DC power supply then yes, it will produce DC that is close to flat (although to get it perfectly smooth as from a battery you need a VERY high quality power supply). If by rectifier you mean just a diode or diode bridge you will just get half sine waves: VERY lumpy!

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by John_char

And here was I thinking there were several new posts about Starlink. Silly me. [emoji6]

I agree. OK, in other news unrelated to rectum-finders:

There's a Starlink on Boats FB group for those who subscribe to the OTHER Evil Empire. Some blather in there, of course, but some nuggets of good info.

There's also a Starlink for RVers and other mobile users FB group that's been useful. Mostly RVers, of course, but they're "land cruisers" much like us.

One thing to come out of this is that, unless you're at very high latitudes, Dishy's motors are NOT needed. There are plenty of birds straight overhead. This is actually a big deal, as it means Dishy can be mounted by grabbing the edges, thereby eliminating the only moving parts (the motors probably aren't marine-quality anyway). OK, those who like to sail around rail-down might have problems here, but we prefer a more dignified sailing attitude.

There are videos of where to drill a hole in the back of Dishy to reach in & pull the plug controlling the motors. Then the entire back can be sealed up. From memory, it's 5" in from the left edge & the bottom edge, when looking at the back (but don't trust me). The system will complain about stuck motors, but it will still work, & after a while it will stop complaining.

The Philippines seems to be the only (so far) SE Asian country to sign an agreement for StarLink, despite having to change one of their laws to do this. They'll probably put in a ground station near Manila, & possibly near Davao & Puerto Princesa as well. No word yet on when this will go live, but probably only a couple of months.

StarLink doesn't want you to transport Dishy to other continents. Not sure why the limitation, but hopefully it will go away when the sat/sat laser-mesh goes active, as such a rule would be terrible for us cruisers, as well as international shipping & air flights. For now, a US system will work in Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, & the USVI. European systems appear to work all over Europe.

The oceans seem off-limits for now, probably because the US FCC hasn't issued the required "in-motion" license to StarLink. Why this should affect policy in other countries is unknown, but there don't seem to be cells defined more than about 12nm offshore, even though someone operating from those cells could easily hit a ground station. Completely artificial. Again, I'm hoping this limit will go away when the sat/sat laser-mesh goes active.

Having said that, someone sailing in the Med has reported continuous signal even when more than 12nm offshore, so perhaps it's different there.

Musk has tweeted that the sat/sat laser-mesh should go active "about the middle of the year" but the consensus is that this is "Elon Time" & probably a bit ambitious. Still, there are currently about 2400 birds in orbit, & SpaceX has increased their launch cadence to about 50/week(!!) or ~200/month. They're only launched into very low orbits, so dud bird's orbits will decay & they'll burn up in the atmosphere quickly. Good birds then have to climb up to their operating orbits, which takes about 3 months. Their Hall-effect ion thrusters are very efficient, but extremely low powered, & they take too much of their electrical budget to run their radios while they're thrusting, so they'll only come online when they reach their operational orbits. This means that about 600 launched birds are still climbing & not part of the operational constellation.

This means that there are about 500 of the laser-equipped birds operational now, with 50 more coming online every week. I'm not sure how many it will take for the mesh to start working. Iridium does it with only 66 birds, but they're higher up, & I'm not sure of the range of the StarLink lasers.

Reports from those who've taken Dishy sailing are that it now retains lock on the satellites even in fairly heavy weather & on relatively small cruising boats. Excellent news, since early reports with V1 Dishy said it would lose lock just making a slow turn in flat water, even on big boats.

Someone cut their Dishy apart & removed the motors, revealing that the phased array & all the controlling electronics are all in a very thin flat pan. He did this to see how it worked when mounted on his car, driving down the highway. He reported no problems (except when going under overpasses) at up to 80mph (130Kph). I imagine these will soon be fitted into the roof of Teslas, & probably all but invisible.

Hawaiian Airlines & Delta are both experimenting with StarLink on their planes, but no word yet on when they'll go live. They're probably waiting for FCC "in-motion" approval.

In Tim Dodd's latest video (Everyday Astronaut) Musk claimed that the V2 birds are too big (or too heavy) to launch with Falcon9, & will have to wait for Star-Ship & Super-Heavy (which rumor says will get the green light from the FAA in 3 days). Musk also said that the V2 birds will have roughly 10x the capabilities of the current v1.5 birds, but he didn't elaborate.

[Tenedos]

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.

Powering it from 12DC is not really that difficult. I’d ignore messing with the inverter and just go with with DC. I wrote detailed instructions here:

https://svrenaissance.com/musings-ab...c-power-source

I am writing this from our 12V powered Starlink at anchor. Your batteries and solar should be more than enough.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Jon Hacking

... In Tim Dodd's latest video (Everyday Astronaut) Musk claimed that the V2 birds are too big (or too heavy) to launch with Falcon9, & will have to wait for Star-Ship & Super-Heavy (which rumor says will get the green light from the FAA in 3 days). Musk also said that the V2 birds will have roughly 10x the capabilities of the current v1.5 birds, but he didn't elaborate.

Indeed.
The FAA plans to release the Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program on May 31, 2022.
➥ https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholde...pacex_starship

More about Starship/Super Heavy ➥ https://www.inverse.com/science/star...-date-may-2022

[SVNoko]

Does it make sense to install a separate 24V+ battery/circuit for the Starlink kit and 2 laptops + monitor.? Just ordered the RV version. Planning to follow the article below to lower the power consumption but it calls for a beefier battery+upconversion. Also ordering solar panels and wondering if I should have a separate circuit to power and charge the internet and 1-2 laptops for continuous work (working from a boat). Have a set of 3 older house 12v. Any experience with that, ideas?

https://svrenaissance.com/musings-ab...c-power-source

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Noko.

[toddster8]

Dishy arrived today. Unfortunately there isn't time to do more than just look at it.

First impression: That IS a nice compact package

Second impression: Hmm... this is a used unit. Or at least it has been out in the weather for some time. Anyone else receive "weathered" equipment for the RV package?

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by toddster8

... Hmm... this is a used unit. Or at least it has been out in the weather for some time. Anyone else receive "weathered" equipment for the RV package?

There have been reports on the "Starlink for RVers & other mobile users" FB group of folks receiving obviously used (& sometimes even broken) user terminals. Obviously, their QA isn't as good as what they do for gear going into space. And it's a pain in the patootie getting any response from Starlink support. You can file a ticket, but you'll probably have to wait, possibly for weeks, to get anything more than an automated response.

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by SVNoko

Does it make sense to install a separate 24V+ battery/circuit for the Starlink kit and 2 laptops + monitor?

As Gord says, welcome to CF, Noko!

I don't think it makes much sense to create a completely separate 24v battery system for Starlink. Dishy itself runs on 48v, so you'd still need an up-converter to power it from 24v, & the complexity of that doesn't improve going from 12v to 24v.

Dishy only uses about 50W (unless you need the heating circuit) which is only 4A@12v. Our laptops are fairly chunky (8-core Ryzan 7@2GHz, 17" 1920x1080 displays) but they typically only draw 1A each at 12v using dedicated 12v-to-19v "mobile" power supplies (about $30 on Amazon). Yes, they certainly can draw more at times, but they run pretty efficiently from our 12v dedicated supplies.

The added complexity of an additional 24v battery system sounds like a poor "solution" to me, but you don't say anything about the rest of your needs.

[Mal Reynolds]

DISH is apparently petitioning the FCC to force Starlink to stop allowing moving antennas.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/dish-dema...ving-boats-and

With some luck, this will have the opposite effect DISH wants, and the FCC will approve moving antennas more quickly. On the other hand, Musk seems politically toxic these days.

[Jon Hacking]

Yeah, I agree, Mal. I don't know what the hold-up is with Starlink's In-Motion request, but I wish the FCC would get on with it. After all, every cell-phone in the world can be used while in motion, as well as all the different sat-phones.

As worded, Dish is concerned about Starlink interfering with Dish's GROUND (user) terminals, which is really silly. Those UTs are going to be exposed to Starlink's signals no matter what, if the Starlink UT is moving or still. And Starlink is supposed to work worldwide, so Dish's complaints about interfering with their "remote" uses is also silly.

Still, it does require that the Starlink birds not target a cell when the bird is directly between that cell & the equatorial geosynchronous birds, if everyone's using the same frequencies (certain frequencies are better at going through rain & clouds, so everyone wants to use just those frequencies). That requires some fairly hairy (for humans) orbital calculations, but it's trivial for modern chips. And again, it has nothing to do with if the UTs are moving or not.

It sounds to me a bit like the death-rattle of a company that realizes it's turning into a dinosaur.

Dish could legitimately be worried that Dishy's beam might point towards one of their birds, but they don't actually say that, & that's pretty easy to guard against in SW. Dishy has to hit a moving bird with a 3 deg beam, so it's certainly smart enough not to point that beam at equatorial geosynchronous birds. And Dishy's power is tiny compared to Dish's uplink feed.

[jbinbi]

This guy claims a 10-30% power reduction , high power/low power modes by bypassing the inverter. He thinks that part of that is due to nominal draw of inverter to begin with in quiescent state, so low power gets a better power reduction.

https://www.tuckstruck.net/truck-and...-on-ac-and-dc/

I would think that given the interest in marine/RV community version 2 or 3 over the next couple of years will see the design engineers figure out a way to be more power efficient. At least I hope that is the case