Before the advent of reusable rockets, satellite based internet was riddled with issues that limited widespread adoption. Previously, launching satellites was expensive so services like Viasat launched only a few, school-bus-sized satellites in a high orbit in order to cover as much of the globe as possible. This approach had several short comings. First, they resulted in slow speeds. Placing the satellites 22000 miles away resulted in high latency (even light takes a while to cover that distance) and by need to serve a large amount of users with each satellite, the speeds were not only limited but also expensive.

All this changed with SpaceX. After their initial success with the Falcon rockets, they quickly realized the benefits of having more affordable launching capabilities. Instead of launching a few large satellites, they decided to launch on the order of thousands. And because there would be so many, they could be closer to the ground and still cover the globe (between 200 and 400 miles away). This results in faster speeds, servicing more people, at a lower cost. This services promises to make high sped internet accessible everywhere on the globe.

The hype has been warranted for the most part. Since 2019, they’ve launched over 3000 satellites, enabling folks everywhere to indulge in the digital opiate of the masses that the internet has become; I’m currently typing this while connected to the service.

Last summer, they went a step further and launched a portable service targeted toward RVs and liveaboards. It works well, except for one thing: the device requires AC which costs a premium when offgrid. Not only does it require expensive devices like inverters, it also uses precious battery energy.

For my project, I decided to modify my starlink to be able to function off DC. There’s plenty of tutorials outlining the process and I decided to evolve things a bit: Make it follow ABYC standards (OCPDs and the like) and because I have a Milwaukee tower, power it using a M18 battery.

A general diagram of the system

First an foremost, the Starlink dish gets its power through ethernet (POE) using a custom connector. Since I didn’t want to cut my main cable (and still use AC), I bought the starlink ethernet adaptor and modified that. Second, the dish uses custom pinouts, requiring a patch cable to inject POE. And last, it requires 48V so I purchased a Victron 24⇒48 DC:DC converter.

So far, (as of March 13th), I have everything connected but want to make it more user friendly by labeling everything and possibly using a Packout Case to create a self contained container.