TheBackShed.com

Forum Index : Electronics : Starlink info for those who travel

Author

Message

poida

Guru

Joined: 02/02/2017
Location: Australia
Posts: 1432

Posted: 07:07am 18 May 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

I wanted to know the power draw from a standard kit
eg. https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/starlink-standard-kit-latest-generation

my battery in the camper is 2 x 12V 100AH Lithium, in parallel
The inverter is a 275 VA, 12V Victron which draws about 0.5A @ 13V with no load.

The starlink terminal starts at about 5 W, powering the wifi then it needs about 100W
booting up the antenna and once settled down and online it needs around 55W
these power levels are taken from testing it using bench power supply set
to 56.5V DC output.
this 55W is equivalent to about 4.3 Amps at 13V

When powered by the inverter it uses 5-6 Amps at 13V
This means the cost of the inverter and starlink power supply
losses is about 2A
I thought maybe use a DC boost converter but I doubt it would be worth it
and even less efficient.

The cable connecting the antenna to the terminal/wifi is very special
and expensive. You get a 15M cable with the kit.
the 45M cable is $270 from Harvey Norman

The connectors are RJ-45 and the outer cable shield is connected to the metal
outer of the RJ-45 connectors. The cable is Cat6.
I want a much longer cable than the 15M since we stop at places where there are
plenty of trees. You need no trees obscuring about 1/2 of the sky
for it to work well enough.
I made a 50M cable, using Cat6 cable and normal cheap all plastic RJ-45 connectors.
You need to wire them as shown to get the 1Gbit functionality.

Testing this home made cable had 240 Mbit speeds from the satellites
and it was that when using the starlink's kit 15M cable.
This cable cost me nothing since I had connectors, cable and tool already
at work.

wronger than a phone book full of wrong phone numbers

phil99

Guru

Joined: 11/02/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 2439

Posted: 08:08am 18 May 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Quote I thought maybe use a DC boost converter but I doubt it would be worth it

Yes and no.
Half a century ago went through a similar exercise. Wanted to take a portable colour TV on a comping holiday but it didn't like my homebrew 240V modified square wave inverter.
Internally it ran off 115VDC at 0.45A.

Wasted a lot of time trying to get an inductor based boost converter to do it efficiently. The answer was a transformer boost converter producing up to 60V HF AC feeding a voltage doubler rectifier. Feedback then brought it back to 115V.
The oscillator was just a NE555 with feedback going to pin 5. Output transistors were MJ802, gross overkill but gave a low VCEsat. MOSFETS were not readily available then.
Efficiency was roughly 90%.
Edited 2025-05-18 18:15 by phil99

Print this page

To reply to this topic, you need to log in.