Starlink

dtfeld said:
Looks great!! Nice job!

One trick I learned for doing caulk or 3M 4200/5200 is to get a roll of paper towels, and a trash/can/bag and when wiping away the excess, only use the paper towel once, and throw it away. Keeps the goop off you and everything else.
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Yea, I went through a roll doing this. I still suck....
 
Its on the roof. As long as it sealed.. who cares!
 
So I did some experimenting with starlink over the weekend and found the following. Performed the router delete and found that the speeds I was getting was about 25% that of the starlink router. Was seeing upload speeds on two different routers down around 30mbs where the Starlink router was showing 120-150 mbs. Now I did not use a shielded cat6 cable to go from the poe injector to the starlink so not sure if that had an affect. I will test with a length of shield cat6.

Second thing I noted was that with the router delete the starlink was drawing about 4amps per my Victron shunt. I hooked up the starlink router to an inverter and the amp draw was the same 4amps.
 
Irie308 said:
So I did some experimenting with starlink over the weekend and found the following. Performed the router delete and found that the speeds I was getting was about 25% that of the starlink router. Was seeing upload speeds on two different routers down around 30mbs where the Starlink router was showing 120-150 mbs. Now I did not use a shielded cat6 cable to go from the poe injector to the starlink so not sure if that had an affect. I will test with a length of shield cat6.

Second thing I noted was that with the router delete the starlink was drawing about 4amps per my Victron shunt. I hooked up the starlink router to an inverter and the amp draw was the same 4amps.
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Something isn't quite right. In my test's the speeds were the same or faster. Hard to tell about faster as in my area I was always in degraded service a lot of the time. But in general with the router in bypass mode and only acting as a power supply the speeds were well over 100mbs. The thing that does slow it down a bit is the Peplink but only marginally, ~10% I would guess. But the PL is needed in the setup so it's the price you pay.

I haven't removed the SL router form the mix just yet. It is running in bypass mode and only acting as a power supply with the ethernet adapter connected to the Peplink. But everything I have read is the SL router runs at about 4amps and when removed or deleted as you say, the current drops to half that. Strange to hear what your seeing. But I have never measured it myself.

For me the switch over to all DC is about having all of the wifi gear on one dc breaker, much easier to reset when needed. Not to mention the space saved on all the extra wire and router being removed.
 
Yes, I am also on the fence about removing the Starlink Router (aka power supply) right now. I really don't care about the AC vs DC as that is not an issue for me. I do like the "one switch" idea that @SKybolt has in his design but not a game changer for me. I have all the parts but I think I am going to wait to see how it all plays out before I make this change to DC. Plenty of other projects to work on....
 
Greetings from the USVI. I’m down here at Skip’s place. He is the creator of the 420 thread. He just had Starlink installed at his house down here. He loves it. Right now, on my iPad I’m getting 64 Mbps down and 7 Mbps up. I don’t know exactly where the router is. I’m sitting in the living room.

Here’s the problem/question: If I go out the sliding glass door to the deck, literally 15 feet away, the signal goes to essentially zero. As I’ve followed this thread because I think it’s amazing what you guys are doing. Would I be correct in saying that poor signal is due to the Starlink router, and that better coverage could be attained by adding a new router after the SL router and disabling or bypassing the SL router?

Jaybeaux
 
Jaybeaux said:
Greetings from the USVI. I’m down here at Skip’s place. He is the creator of the 420 thread. He just had Starlink installed at his house down here. He loves it. Right now, on my iPad I’m getting 64 Mbps down and 7 Mbps up. I don’t know exactly where the router is. I’m sitting in the living room.

Here’s the problem/question: If I go out the sliding glass door to the deck, literally 15 feet away, the signal goes to essentially zero. As I’ve followed this thread because I think it’s amazing what you guys are doing. Would I be correct in saying that poor signal is due to the Starlink router, and that better coverage could be attained by adding a new router after the SL router and disabling or bypassing the SL router?

Jaybeaux
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In theory yes... You need to find out where the Starlink router is located as that may be the issue itself based on where you are trying to get your wifi. Depending on how big the house is you can get an external router or mesh system that would improve your wifi. Starlink does sell additional mesh routers that work with their original router "just plug it in" and it will expand your coverage.
 
firecadet613 said:
@SKybolt did you use shielded cat6? I'm thinking that may be @Irie308 issue.
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Yes with the metal grounded RJ45 connectors. I also use the rubber strain relief covers. But there isn't that much cable to be made. The only thing that I can think of that may be happening is the power is being maxed or over limit at times and effecting the speed that way.
 
Jaybeaux said:
Greetings from the USVI. I’m down here at Skip’s place. He is the creator of the 420 thread. He just had Starlink installed at his house down here. He loves it. Right now, on my iPad I’m getting 64 Mbps down and 7 Mbps up. I don’t know exactly where the router is. I’m sitting in the living room.

Here’s the problem/question: If I go out the sliding glass door to the deck, literally 15 feet away, the signal goes to essentially zero. As I’ve followed this thread because I think it’s amazing what you guys are doing. Would I be correct in saying that poor signal is due to the Starlink router, and that better coverage could be attained by adding a new router after the SL router and disabling or bypassing the SL router?

Jaybeaux
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I've heard the router has weak signal, but I'm willing to bet it has to more to do with interference. I have Starlink at my rural property and put the router in my living room.

The signal is strong enough at my gate, 300' away to run a camera and I can get signal all around my lake, 400' in the other direction (strong enough to make calls).

But, there is no other wifi networks and barely any cell phone signal out there. Needless to say, I'm impressed with it!
 
SKybolt said:
Yes with the metal grounded RJ45 connectors. I also use the rubber strain relief covers. But there isn't that much cable to be made. The only thing that I can think of that may be happening is the power is being maxed or over limit at times and effecting the speed that way.
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I'm running about 225' of cable between my router and dishy (shielded cat6 and connectors) and have no speed loss. It's actually getting better with time as they put more satellites into orbit.

Do you have the original 75' you can swap back to for testing purposes?
 
Jaybeaux said:
... Here’s the problem/question: If I go out the sliding glass door to the deck, literally 15 feet away, the signal goes to essentially zero. As I’ve followed this thread because I think it’s amazing what you guys are doing. Would I be correct in saying that poor signal is due to the Starlink router, and that better coverage could be attained by adding a new router after the SL router and disabling or bypassing the SL router?

Jaybeaux
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The short answer is yes the SL router is not the greatest. It has no settings and act's like it is directional even though it is not. I find that treating it like it is a cable modem and use your own equipment is the best route to go. That is also a good reason to ditch the SL brick (router). It's also nice to have the Peplink in the mix to help manage the WiFi/Cell/Sat connections. If you never go under a roof in the winter then you could probably fore go the Peplink and possibly get increased performance.
 
firecadet613 said:
... Do you have the original 75' you can swap back to for testing purposes?
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You need the original cable if you haven't cut the motors out. But yes I am using the original cable but cut shorter and connected to the SL wired ethernet adapter then into the PL and then into my wifi router. The SL router is in bypass mode. I am going to remove the SL router from the picture later this month and run only POE to save on space.

I didn't find there router to be that fast, but then again I was in degraded service area's this past fall. This year will be the true test for me as my area is now listed as a viable service area. I can't test until I move the boat back into it's real slip. I am under a roof now for winter and only get limited SL service at low tide. But enough to verify that my wiring is correct.
 
Instead of cutting my cable I modified their ethernet adapter and used a coupler with a length of non shielded cat 6 to the poe injector. I'm going to test with a shielded coupler and a length of shielded cat 6 to see if speeds are better. However I'm now questioning if the inverter isn't the easier mod since amp draw is the same (4 amps). I don't mind using the starlink router as it works great installed on the bridge of our boat.
 
Irie308 said:
Instead of cutting my cable I modified their ethernet adapter and used a coupler with a length of non shielded cat 6 to the poe injector. I'm going to test with a shielded coupler and a length of shielded cat 6 to see if speeds are better. However I'm now questioning if the inverter isn't the easier mod since amp draw is the same (4 amps). I don't mind using the starlink router as it works great installed on the bridge of our boat.
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Can't speak to that mod, but it sounds like it's possibly the issue, especially if your still using the SL router wit your own router. The SL router needs to be in bypass mode if your using the ethernet adapter and plugging that into your own equipment. If not the speeds will be all over the place and at best being slit between the two systems, your router and SL router. I don't see how that can actually even work.

Now if your using the SL router in WiFi mode and have a peplink connecting to the SL as an access point like you do for marina wifi, then your speeds will be in the toilet.
 
SKybolt said:
Can't speak to that mod, but it sounds like it's possibly the issue, especially if your still using the SL router wit your own router. The SL router needs to be in bypass mode if your using the ethernet adapter and plugging that into your own equipment. If not the speeds will be all over the place and at best being slit between the two systems, your router and SL router. I don't see how that can actually even work.

Now if your using the SL router in WiFi mode and have a peplink connecting to the SL as an access point like you do for marina wifi, then your speeds will be in the toilet.
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To clarify, the starlink router is completely removed from the equation. I introduced the adapter as I rather cut that than the starlink cable. So the way I have it connected is "dishy" connects to the adapter then the other end that would go to the router is cut and re-terminated (per the swapped pin out). This end now goes to a coupler connected via standard cat6 to the POE injector. From the injector standard ethernet out to my router.
 
Irie308 said:
To clarify, the starlink router is completely removed from the equation. I introduced the adapter as I rather cut that than the starlink cable. So the way I have it connected is "dishy" connects to the adapter then the other end that would go to the router is cut and re-terminated (per the swapped pin out). This end now goes to a coupler connected via standard cat6 to the POE injector. From the injector standard ethernet out to my router.
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Ah, ok. I think that the wiring from the SL router to the adapter also needs to have the green and blue wires swapped as well. That could be your issue. I don't believe SL uses a standard network pinout anywhere in their system.

Edit: Also keep in mind that at some point you need a network cable that is a standard RJ45 pinout on one end and "XSwapped" on the other end. That XSwapped goes to the poe injector as the data connection and XSwapped from there on out.
 
Irie308 said:
Instead of cutting my cable I modified their ethernet adapter and used a coupler with a length of non shielded cat 6 to the poe injector. I'm going to test with a shielded coupler and a length of shielded cat 6 to see if speeds are better. However I'm now questioning if the inverter isn't the easier mod since amp draw is the same (4 amps). I don't mind using the starlink router as it works great installed on the bridge of our boat.
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I've seen a lot of complaints regarding the ethernet adapter. I added it to my setup to try a mesh network but saw slower speeds so I cut it out. The SL Router actually has better signal strength at my gate vs the Mesh Network I bought....can't explain it but it seems backwards to me!
 
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