I've also seen people shorten the dishy cord and replace the inverter and
internal power supply with a 12v -> 48v converted and had the dish power draw
drop significantly. (search youtube for starlink on 12v, I'll try to find the
link and send it to you later)
they have a snow melting function that draws a lot of power, the app lets you
completely disable that.
David Lang
On Fri, 17 Feb 2023, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote:
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2023 12:08:02 +1300
From: Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <[email protected]>
Reply-To: Ulrich Speidel <[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking
In the aftermath of our cyclone here, I got dragged out for a bit of media
comment and, downstream, a few questions came up on dishy power use. Here's
what I know and can glean - comments welcome:
* Starlink's own specs say 50-75 W "Average Power Usage":
https://www.starlink.com/specifications. But that's average, not
peak, and peak is what matters when people start recommending that
Starlink could be run out of a small inverter and a car battery in a
disaster.
* Small inverters usually come with cigarette lighter cables, and
cigarette lighter sockets are typically fused with 8 or 10 A fuses.
That puts maximum safe power outputs in the 96W to 130-something W
range depending on battery voltage.
* Our lab's "RV" subscription rectangular dishy & router regularly
clocks in at around 80-100 W, and I've seen it go as high as 108 W
on one occasion. I've also seen it go as low as 30 W for the first
time last night.
* I have a user report from an older round dishy owner having seen up
to 200 W on occasion.
* Assuming conservatively 90% inverter efficiency, that could mean up
to ~120W and maybe more for the rectangular version and over 220 W
for the circular one.
* If dishy goes over cigarette lighter fuse capacity, people may lose
their ability to charge phones from their car - also a critical
capability in a disaster.
o Not everyone takes kindly to the suggestion that advising
inverter + car battery use could potentially be counterproductive.
* So, what's the peak power use you have seen on your version of dishy?
* It appears that the current mode of operation here is that dishy
uses several satellites in parallel if these can all see a gateway
and have capacity to carry traffic.
o So for us in urban Auckland with few Starlink users in the cell
and three gateways in the vicinity, our dishy is spoiled for
choice and usually gets to use maybe three or more satellites at
once. That takes a corresponding amount of power but also means
great data rates a lot of the time.
o For a rural user with more Starlink users in the cell and
further away from gateways, the satellites that the cell can see
and that can also see a gateway may be fewer in number. This
means dishy only gets to talk to maybe one or two birds at a
time and so uses a lot less power, and you get more average data
rates there.
* If this is so, then it begs a question:
o If Starlink could cap the number of satellites dishy can use in
an emergency area, they would be able to keep your fuse intact.
Should they aim for that, even if it means that you might see
lower data rates in a situation when many people depend on one unit?
Starlink is currently being touted as THE comms solution for emergencies as
large swathes of NZ's northern and eastern North Island remain without
terrestrial or mobile Internet coverage after cyclone Gabrielle. This is the
outage map of one of the larger mobile phone providers just for these areas:
Most of these are due to power outages to sites, but there are quite a few
backhaul cable issues as well.
One of the biggest problems is that electronic payment systems don't work
without Internet. In our largely cashless society, this is leading to
situations where emergency services can't refuel their vehicles because their
fuel cards won't work, supermarkets and other stores can't sell anything
because customers have no means of paying, and the air force is flying in
hard cash in order to help the locals buy food.
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