Hacking the Rectangular Starlink Dishy Cable

rect-starlink-cable-hack.md

Hacking the Rectangular Starlink Dishy Cable

These are are some notes I put together on butchering the rectangular dishy cable.

FOLLOW THESE GUIDELINES AT YOUR OWN RISK. I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE OR INJURY YOU SUSTAIN FROM FOLLOWING OR NOT FOLLOWING THESE GUIDELINES.

Disclaimer: Don't do this

In general, if you can get away with using the original 75' cable (or the official 150' long replacement cable), then that is ultimately preferable to doing any of this stuff. If you don't already know why you would want to do this then you definitely shouldn't do it. If you run into trouble, the first thing Starlink Support is going to ask is if the cable between your dishy and router has any modifications, and for good reason.

Power

Despite the connectors being proprietary, the underlying technology connecting the router and the rectangular dishy is gigabit ethernet with non-standard PoE(The orange and green pairs are positive, the blue and brown pairs are negative). The cable itself is plain stranded STP CAT5e, suitable for outdoor use. The router acts as a 48V, 2A PoE power supply, so 96 watts are available at the port the router.

Stick with the original router (and possibly the ethernet port dongle) unless you have a good reason to try something else. You cannot power dishy with a standard PoE injector, but if you are enterprising enough you can rearrange the wires (swap blue/green, terminate as Type-B) going into and out-of a passive 4-pair PoE Injector and get it working with a sufficiently large 48V or 52V DC power supply.

Note that most 48V 2A power supplies on Amazon are insufficient! I recommend this 52V power supply, as I have confirmed that it works and I am using it on my own 200+ft run.

Resistance

Resistance is the primary limiting factor you will run into. As you increase the length of the cable and add additional terminations/connectors, resistance increases. If the resistance is too high, the voltage at the dishy will (perhaps only occasionally) drop too low, causing it to spuriously reboot or not boot at all.

The exact maximum round-trip power resistance that the cable can have before Dishy's stability suffers isn't immediately clear, but 1.8Ω round-trip (~88 watts available for Dishy) appears to be stable while 2.5Ω round-trip is just barely unstable. (neither value includes the resistance of about 20 extra feet of the original CAT5e that is used in my setup)

If you cannot easily measure resistance, you will need to be as conservative as possible:

• Keep the length of your entire run as short as possible and your connectors as few as possible. Continuous runs are almost always preferable to runs with connectors.
• Use outdoor-rated cable for outdoor runs. If riser cable is all you have, paint it.
• Don't directly bury the cable unless it is rated for direct burial. Otherwise, water intrusion will eventually make your connection unreliable. The original cable is NOT rated for direct burial.
• Use 23AWG (or larger) CAT6/CAT6A cable, which will contribute around 0.03Ω/meter for a continuous run.
• The original cable was only 24AWG, so if you are using 23AWG cable then the less length you use from the original cable the better.
• It would appear that connectors will each contribute ~0.02-0.1Ω to the round-trip resistance, but more research is required.
• Avoid unnecessary use of patch panels, they introduce additional connectors and add resistance.
• 150' is likely the most distance you are going to get without changing your approach (like splitting out the power into larger guage wires, etc), but if you use a specialty low-resistance cable (like this) then you might be able to almost double that with some careful terminations.
• Once you get everything set up, try turning on snow pre-heat mode:
  • If you can run a few speed tests in a row without problems, then you are likely golden.
  • If your dishy reboots (either immediately or after running a few speed tests), your cable resistance is too high.

For longer runs you may need to use a power supply with a larger voltage. I can confirm that the rectangular dishy works fine on 52V.

Grounding

With a longer run, proper grounding and surge protection becomes more important. Dishy must be grounded in some way. With the unmodified original cable, that grounding comes from the router. Since we are cutting that wire, we need to make sure that we provide that grounding.

• At least the the first RJ45 termination on the dishy side should be a grounded RJ45 plug.
• Use a high-quality, grounded, PoE-compatable ethernet surge protector at the termination closest to your dishy.
  • If you do this at your "service entrance" (where the wire enters your house), then you won't need a shielded ethernet cable after that point---but you might want it to be shielded to reduce RF interference.
  • If you do use a shielded cable after the grounded surge protector, make sure you don't have a continuous ground between your surge protector and your Starlink router---that would create a ground loop, and you don't want that. If there is a ground fault, some of the surge current could go through your shielding!
• Alternatively, you could forgo the surge protector and use shielded cables, connectors, and plugs for the entire run and ensure continuity between the starlink router and dishy (presumably the router has some amount of built-in surge protection).

The standard StarLink cable is 75ft, there are 8 24AWG wires in there, but they are twisted together so they are very slightly longer than 75ft.

Sorry, the standard Starlink cable is 50 feet. It's in their specs, and I confirmed it by measuring the old one that I pulled out.

https://www.starlink.com/specifications

Starlink doesn't say whether it's Cat 5e or Cat 6a. I've seen it described both ways, but as I write I'm inclined to say Cat 5e. That would be 24 AWG. Ampacity for 24 AWG is 3.5.

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wire-gauges-d_419.html

Now for the fun stuff. When my router is plugged in without the cable plugged in, it registers 0.07A at the indoor outlet. When the cable is plugged in, it registers 0.37A. Both numbers vary a bit but not much; the dish is drawing about 0.3A minus whatever resistance is in 50 feet of 24AWG and two connectors. That 0.3A is measured at the outlet, but there's a step-down transformer in the router that converts 120 volts to 48 volts. This turns 0.3A into 0.75A. Doesn't change the wattage: still 36 watts

My next door neighbor, also a Starlink user whose cable crapped out, measured 5A at the wall outlet last winter with Snow Melt running. Subtracting the 0.07A that the router uses, you get 4.93A delivered to the 48 volt power supply. Voltage stepped down, amperage stepped up to 12.5 over wiring rated for 3.5A . Either way, about 600 watts. (Okay, 591.6 minus a smidgen of power loss in the transformer.) It's becoming clear to me just why so many Starlink cables are failing. Would you use Cat 5e (or Cat 6a) to run power to a space heater?

Now that Starlink is fully commercial, it's becoming popular in rural areas. In places like mine, where it's cold enough to trigger the Snow Melt thermostat off and on for maybe half the year if left on the default "automatic" setting, I think this wiring is getting damaged a little bit each time until it finally gives out. I also note that the Starlink router label shows that it's a 2A device, yet my neighbor observed that it was drawing 5A when Snow Melt was running. I wonder if Snow Melt is frying both the routers and the cables.

My big remaining question is: How long does Snow Melt go on when it goes on? My guess is "not for long enough to fry the cables right away." This is why, when I click around and see reports of bad cables, the story is almost always that it worked for X months then suddenly stopped. In any case I will check that this coming December. When there's a storm, I'll sit next to the meter, turn on Snow Melt and watch what happens, and for how long. I see that Starlink says the dish will melt 1.5" of snow per hour. Sorry, that tells me nothing. At what angle? And what triggers its activation?

I am not an electrician. Didn't take Electrician 101 at the community college. I've had to do a bunch of research to figure this out, but the closer I look the more I think this explains a widespread Starlink problem. Finally, we might ask how something this basic and frankly stupid could happen (if I'm correct, that is.) The answer would be rocket science. Musk & Co. put all their brain cells into the rockets, the satellites, and the dishes, and wound up "assuming" the routers and cables. Kind of like when the space shuttle geniuses assumed those O-rings. Smart people are no less inclined to be oblivious than anyone else.

FINALLY ... if anyone can tell me how I'm wrong about this, I am much, MUCH more receptive to correction than it might seem.

Sorry, the standard Starlink cable is 50 feet. It's in their specs, and I confirmed it by measuring the old one that I pulled out.

used to be 75. but it's honestly too much distance. i was always cutting and shortening.

I can't find passive poe injectors with 4 pairs. Is it possible to use 2 of these making 2 custom Y cable to use only the 2 powered pairs of each injector?

https://www.alfa.com.tw/products/apoe03g?variant=39871024889928

Is it possible to use 2 of these making 2 custom Y cable to use only the 2 powered pairs of each injector?

Yes but you have to know exactly what you are doing and it's pointless since the Tycon, as documented above, works just fine so long as correct wire pairs are swapped. If you don't want to do that the one I posted links to on Amazon doesn't require the wire swap. Seriously though, the cable has to be cut with any of these solutions (except the two most recently posted) so attach the RJ45 modular plus and it really is no more difficult to crimp those on with the correct wire swap than it is to crimp them on without a wire swap. (Both are error prone of course.)

A single APOE03G costs the same as a single Tycon PoE (USD15 from Amazon, USD10+postage direct from Tycon).

From Germany I see the Tycoon no more available from your link. From another it's 30€ but long time delivery, I ordered 2 days ago and it should arrive 24th but it hasn't been shipped yet (but it's too late for me in anycase). The APOE03G is 9.85 + 5€, total 25€ and should be here in 2-3 days.
Thank you!
Let's see if I'll be able to put together something that'll work ;)

The Reolink power supply is out of stock and I can't find an equivalent replacement where I live. DC power supplies don't seem to advertise whether or not the DC negative is connected to ground, it seems to be luck of the draw.

How can I make sure that the CAT5e shield is correctly grounded when using a POE-INJ-1000-WT PoE injector? It only has + and - inputs. There's no terminal for ground. Is it safe to take any random 48-52V power brick and ground its DC negative output?

How can I make sure that the CAT5e shield is correctly grounded when using a POE-INJ-1000-WT PoE injector?

It's well documented in the Tycon specification; the PoE does a pass through on the shield. You need to use a PSU which is floating but general purpose PSUs should do that; the only one I've found that did actually ground the output was a LinkSys PSU designed for a particular piece of equipment. Test it first.

It's well documented in the Tycon specification; the PoE does a pass through on the shield. You need to use a PSU which is floating but general purpose PSUs should do that; the only one I've found that did actually ground the output was a LinkSys PSU designed for a particular piece of equipment. Test it first.

The shield is meant to be grounded isn't it? I will be connecting the dish (via the PoE injector) to a network switch which is powered off a DC barrel jack and has a floating ground. So, if I used the Tycon injector and used its shield pass through, the shield would still be ungrounded at all 4 plugs (2 on the dish side, 2 on the switch side).

In this situation don't I need to explicitly provide it with a ground, or accept the risk of being ungrounded?

In this situation don't I need to explicitly provide it with a ground, or accept the risk of being ungrounded?

Yes, the shield should be grounded somewhere. You have to make an explicit decision where to ground it unless the PoE injector does it. (The PoE injector for my other PoE aerial, from my original ISP, does ground the shield.) Normally nothing else in the cable run (including surge suppressors) will ground the shield.

In my StarLink arrangement I had the dish plugged in to a surge suppressor then from there to the Tycon WT then all the way to my router; this was in a box outside the house. I ran the drain wire out of one of the RJ45 plugs and just connected that to the same ground as the surge suppressor.

In the arrangement with my prior ISP I put a surge suppressor on the outside of the house, in a box, and had waterproof RJ45 sockets on that. IRC I had a shield pass-through to the PoE but I could have grounded the shield of the incoming RJ45 inside the box and arranged not to connect it on the outgoing connection to the PoE, or broken the connection to the PoE by using an unshielded cable in the last step (wall jack inside the house to PoE.)

NetGear PoE switches do ground the shield; for the ones with the wall-wart and the low voltage DC supplies there is a grounding screw on the case, for ones with built in AC power the shield is connected to the AC ground.

The rule, if there is one, seems to be to ground at the power supply; the PoE injector. All the switches I have provide shielded RJ45 sockets and all those shields are connected together. On one (a new TrendNET 10G switch) the shield is also connected to the power supply socket (12V 1A barrel connector). On another NetGear switch (non-PoE) the shield is isolated from the barrel connector. Since you are using a a switch I would expect every shielded cable plugged into it to be connected together so if any get grounded they all will be.

I ran the drain wire out of one of the RJ45 plugs and just connected that to the same ground as the surge suppressor.

Thanks for the explanation. That all makes sense.

I'm using a Netgear GC110P PoE switch which doesn't have the shield grounded and also doesn't provide a grounding screw. The shield seems to be disconnected from everything.

I like your idea of using one of the spare RJ45 ports and running a drain wire to somewhere else that does have a ground. I might look at doing that too.

For what it's worth, I grounded my 200' setup at two places:

1. Using a Cat-6 surge protector close to the antenna, ~120ft away from the house. This grounds the shielding and provides an arc path to ground for the twisted pairs.
2. Grounding the shielding at the service entrance for the house, no surge.

The ground at the antenna is it's own ground spike. The ground at the house is the shared house ground (luckily I could run a wire to that on the exterior of the house). Unclear if I'm going to ultimately have galvanic problems. Hopefully not. Resistance between the two independent ground spikes is fairly low.

Originally both ground points were going to be full CAT-6 surge protectors, but I was having trouble with them increasing the resistance slightly so at some point I decided to just ground the shielding at the service entrance. That was before I switched to 52V, so perhaps I should revisit that... I'm hesitant to cut the wire though, since I can't un-cut it if it doesn't work out.

Resistance between the two independent ground spikes is fairly low.

I'm very interested in knowing what that resistance is :-)

I'm very interested in knowing what that resistance is :-)

If I remember correctly, it was a few ohms. I don't remember what it was exactly, I just remember thinking "wow, that's lower than I expected". I have an outlet nearby with a ground that is connected to the house ground (not the ground that the antenna is connected to) so one day I got curious and pulled out the multimeter. But a low resistance makes sense, we have a lot of minerals in our clay-type soil that also has considerable moisture content. And I really buried that rod quite well.

I'm curious now, we just had a lot of rain. I can check again tomorrow.

Is it possible to use 2 of these making 2 custom Y cable to use only the 2 powered pairs of each injector?

Yes but you have to know exactly what you are doing and it's pointless since the Tycon, as documented above, works just fine so long as correct wire pairs are swapped. If you don't want to do that the one I posted links to on Amazon doesn't require the wire swap. Seriously though, the cable has to be cut with any of these solutions (except the two most recently posted) so attach the RJ45 modular plus and it really is no more difficult to crimp those on with the correct wire swap than it is to crimp them on without a wire swap. (Both are error prone of course.)

A single APOE03G costs the same as a single Tycon PoE (USD15 from Amazon, USD10+postage direct from Tycon).

I've successfully used the techcharmer.com kit with my modified dishy without having to cut or swap any wires. The process involved connecting the provided cable from the kit to the plug in the back of the dishy, and subsequently to the POE's power output. Then I connected the POE to my router utilizing a standard ethernet cable I acquired from Amazon. This setup has proven to be incredibly reliable, running seamlessly for approximately 4 to 5 months. The kit was roughly $30. Hard to beat that IMO.

Your post is so abbreviated that it's clear you are not speaking to "civilians." Others might get something out of it, but not me.

…

On Thu, Oct 19, 2023 at 7:13 PM crdiaz324 ***@***.***> wrote: ***@***.**** commented on this gist. ------------------------------ Is it possible to use 2 of these making 2 custom Y cable to use only the 2 powered pairs of each injector? Yes but you have to know exactly what you are doing and it's pointless since the Tycon, as documented above, works just fine so long as correct wire pairs are swapped. If you don't want to do that the one I posted links to on Amazon doesn't require the wire swap. Seriously though, the cable has to be cut with any of these solutions (except the two most recently posted) so attach the RJ45 modular plus and it really is no more difficult to crimp those on with the correct wire swap than it is to crimp them on without a wire swap. (Both are error prone of course.) A single APOE03G costs the same as a single Tycon PoE (USD15 from Amazon, USD10+postage direct from Tycon). I've successfully used the techcharmer.com kit with my modified dishy without having to cut or swap any wires. The process involved connecting the provided cable from the kit to the plug in the back of the dishy, and subsequently to the POE's power output. Then I connected the POE to my router utilizing a standard ethernet cable I acquired from Amazon. This setup has proven to be incredibly reliable, running seamlessly for approximately 4 to 5 months. The kit was roughly $30. Hard to beat that IMO. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://gist.github.com/darconeous/8c7899c4d2f849b881d6c43be55066ee#gistcomment-4732181> or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/APOCEYQKSNBGZPEN2BHLYJDYAHM5PBFKMF2HI4TJMJ2XIZLTSKBKK5TBNR2WLJDHNFZXJJDOMFWWLK3UNBZGKYLEL52HS4DFQKSXMYLMOVS2I5DSOVS2I3TBNVS3W5DIOJSWCZC7OBQXE5DJMNUXAYLOORPWCY3UNF3GS5DZVRZXKYTKMVRXIX3UPFYGLK2HNFZXIQ3PNVWWK3TUUZ2G64DJMNZZDAVEOR4XAZNEM5UXG5FFOZQWY5LFVEYTCNBSGQ2TCMRTU52HE2LHM5SXFJTDOJSWC5DF> . You are receiving this email because you commented on the thread. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub> .

@JustOneGuyHere; @crdiaz324 was commenting on his previous post from July:

https://gist.github.com/darconeous/8c7899c4d2f849b881d6c43be55066ee?permalink_comment_id=4645398#gistcomment-4645398

It's worth noting that TechCharmer now sell that Tycon lookalike PSU with what appears to be YAOSHENG adapter I posted a link to (two posts down from the above). Here: https://techcharmer.com/collections/our-products/products/starlink-dc-adapter-kit The Amazon link I posted no longer works but it's here:

https://www.amazon.com/YAOSHENG-Rectangular-Adapter-Connect-Injector/dp/B0BYJTHX4P

It's a nice move by TechCharmer; they've undercut the YAOSHENG very expensive PSU ($81) with an adequate and well proven power supply (assuming it is one of the Tycons), but they certainly seem to be selling the YAOSHENG adapter as part of it. Everyone benefits. The only downside to the TechCharmer solution is that there is no surge protection that I can see, but there is none on the official StarLink router (aka incredibly expensive PSU) so far as I know.

Has anyone tried the new gen3 kickstand dishy.
Wondering if power layout is the same and if we are good to use the same POE PCBs that we use on the gen2?
i know the power requirement is higher and closer to gen1 / beta unit power demand.

The cable seems to be an RJ45 and there is a separate PSU (which powers the router which in turn powers the antenna):

https://www.starlinkhardware.com/starlink-gen-3-dish-launched/

Here is the StarLink "specification sheet":

https://api.starlink.com/public-files/specification_sheet_standard.pdf

So that's apparently RJ45 all the way which means StarLink are likely to either be using modern standards or the Gen1 design. The new router offers Gen1 compatibility but still uses the Gen1 PSU, so the Gen3 dish is most likely using the bt standard. Minimally the RJ45 connection to the dish has to be protected; think what happens if (when) someone plugs their device RJ45 into the StarLink port or plugs the Gen3 dish into a regular PoE.

The dish goes up in stated wattage, "75-100W" from the spec sheet, despite losing the motors. Losing the motors may well help with the connector arcing problem and, anyway, RJ45s are much easier to replace :-)

There's a picture of the power brick here:

https://www.starlinkhardware.com/starlink-gen-3-router-review/

and, zooming in, it's only faceplated at 60W (30V DC 2A) and it is a UL listed LPS, so unless Elon has built in one of those perpetual motion devices that's the maximum the dish can take on average. I'm guessing that the "spec sheet" is hooey and that the "100W" just corresponds to a peak current for a fraction of a second (as in the Gen2 measurements). The pictures on that page also show the router face plate and it lists "Input 1: 30V 1A", so I'm guessing that is just the router box, not the pass through to the dish.

One really weird thing is the compatibility of the router with the Gen2 dish; scroll down the last link above and you will see a picture of the setup. The new router is connected to what looks like the standard Gen2 ethernet dongle, read the text and you will see it is the configuration we all know and hate; the Gen2 (dish) router becomes a separate power brick for the Gen2 dish. Just goes to show what a dogs breakfast the Gen2 dish cabling is.

Even though the Gen3 dish is using what appears to be an RJ45 connector (it has an extra rubber boot) that doesn't mean that it is using a standard PoE solution; I'm just suggesting that given the widespread available of very efficient electronics (FETs instead of diodes for protection etc) it only really makes sense to use one of the standards. The standard implementations can deliver way more power than the power brick.

If the dish has "diode" style protection then it might still work with the swapped connectors so long as it is fine with 48V (not the 30V from the PSU) and so long as it doesn't do active negotiation. That said I wouldn't try it; connecting a passive PoE to an arbitrary device not explicitly documented as requiring the given voltage and wiring strikes me as dangerous.

It may be that the Gen3 dish can be connected safely to an active PoE; it may not work but the active PoEs are designed not to deliver more than a few volts unless the connected device does the right resistor dance. Still, absolutely no guarantees; given the wacky Gen2 dish wiring I regard any such non-approved connection as an experiment.

I find it very odd that the power is said to be higher but the power supply is 30v 2a 60w vs 48v 2a 96w. gen1 brick is even a little higher at 56v.
I am disappointed that they dropped voltage to 30v. this is a really ugly in-between number and not as capable extending distance as 48-56v hardware. It could be alot more finicky adjusting for voltage and amp drop.
30v would not be a bt or any typical POE standard.
We need a brave soul with a gen3 to plug in a cable with isolated exposed pairs to do some pick testing while the dish is running. figure out what pairs are doing what and at what voltage.

I want to see a brick and cable combo that will carry a signal and voltage a long distance. I develop condo highrise projects. I see the need to put antennas on the roof and drop cable down 20 floors to individual units.. gen 2 will not work without major cable mods..  Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone On Friday, December 15, 2023, 1:09 AM, WIMMPYIII ***@***.***> wrote: Re: ***@***.*** commented on this gist. I find it very odd that the power is said to be higher but the power supply is 30v 2a 60w vs 48v 2a 96w. gen1 brick is even a little higher at 56v. I am disappointed that they dropped voltage to 30v. this is a really ugly in-between number and not as capable extending distance as 48-56v hardware. It could be alot more finicky adjusting for voltage and amp drop. 30v would not be a bt or any typical POE standard. We need a brave soul with a gen3 to plug in a cable with isolated exposed pairs to do some pick testing while the dish is running. figure out what pairs are doing what and at what voltage. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub or unsubscribe. You are receiving this email because you commented on the thread. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS or Android.                                                            

I want to see a brick and cable combo that will carry a signal and voltage a long distance. I develop condo highrise projects. I see the need to put antennas on the roof and drop cable down 20 floors to individual units.. gen 2 will not work without major cable mods..  Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone On Friday, December 15, 2023, 1:09 AM, WIMMPYIII @.> wrote: Re: @. commented on this gist. I find it very odd that the power is said to be higher but the power supply is 30v 2a 60w vs 48v 2a 96w. gen1 brick is even a little higher at 56v. I am disappointed that they dropped voltage to 30v. this is a really ugly in-between number and not as capable extending distance as 48-56v hardware. It could be alot more finicky adjusting for voltage and amp drop. 30v would not be a bt or any typical POE standard. We need a brave soul with a gen3 to plug in a cable with isolated exposed pairs to do some pick testing while the dish is running. figure out what pairs are doing what and at what voltage. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub or unsubscribe. You are receiving this email because you commented on the thread. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS or Android.

On a building you could put an enclosure location with ac for the power brick and then 200ft or so down from the brick for a total of 330ft or less. This is a hard issue for a tower or tree installation though.

I find it very odd that the power is said to be higher but the power supply is 30v 2a 60w vs 48v 2a 96w. gen1 brick is even a little higher at 56v.

As you say for PoE standards compliance the minimum voltage at the power injector is 50V, going up to 52V for 802.3bt "type 4" (the 100W variant). All I could find was the data for the power brick and the input of the the latest router (Gen 4?). The maximum voltage in the standards is still 57V, so if the new (Gen 3) dish is PoE 802.3 compliant there is a voltage doubler in the router; these are cheap to implement and very efficient in some of the charge pump implementations.

The PSU brick I found a picture of is apparently not the version distributed in the package with the Gen3 dish. The picture shows a two prong NA-only wall-wart (the prongs can't be changed) but the StarLink and other pages all show an AC cable in the full package and an IEC-320-C7 ("figure-8") socket on the PSU. The wall-wart is more than adequate for the new stand-alone router when used with Gen 1 and Gen2 because they both had separate power adapters for the dish itself.

It's even possible that the "real" PSU has multiple outlets and different voltages, but then I would expect the router to list multiple inputs.

We need a brave soul with a gen3 to plug in a cable with isolated exposed pairs to do some pick testing while the dish is running. figure out what pairs are doing what and at what voltage.

The Gen3 dishes still seem to be "invitation only", but the corresponding router is meant to be available for $199 on its own (possibly with a different PSU). Testing the router should not be a big problem, for one thing there won't be any voltage on an RJ45 breakout plugged in to the dish port after a fraction of a second if it's an 802.3 PoE.

Ok, I am not a tech person. I just build buildings. So tell me what I need to know in plain English if you would. I think I would need rj45 cable, but what gauge and cable type is best? Are the ends that are on end of cable standard for starlink or is there special wiring locations on the plug? Can I make the cable from antenna to brick shorter and cable from brick to condos longer? I really appreciate your help on this. I am doing a project in Mexico now and want to wire the building for starlink Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone On Friday, December 15, 2023, 9:09 AM, WIMMPYIII ***@***.***> wrote: Re: ***@***.*** commented on this gist. I want to see a brick and cable combo that will carry a signal and voltage a long distance. I develop condo highrise projects. I see the need to put antennas on the roof and drop cable down 20 floors to individual units.. gen 2 will not work without major cable mods..  Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone On Friday, December 15, 2023, 1:09 AM, WIMMPYIII @.> wrote: Re: @. commented on this gist. I find it very odd that the power is said to be higher but the power supply is 30v 2a 60w vs 48v 2a 96w. gen1 brick is even a little higher at 56v. I am disappointed that they dropped voltage to 30v. this is a really ugly in-between number and not as capable extending distance as 48-56v hardware. It could be alot more finicky adjusting for voltage and amp drop. 30v would not be a bt or any typical POE standard. We need a brave soul with a gen3 to plug in a cable with isolated exposed pairs to do some pick testing while the dish is running. figure out what pairs are doing what and at what voltage. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub or unsubscribe. You are receiving this email because you commented on the thread. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS or Android. On a building you could put an enclosure location with ac for the power brick and then 200ft or so down from the brick for a total of 330ft or less. This is a hard issue for a tower or tree installation though. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub or unsubscribe. You are receiving this email because you commented on the thread. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS or Android.                                                            

So tell me what I need to know in plain English if you would. I think I would need rj45 cable, but what gauge and cable type is best?

You're at the limit of copper (twisted pair) Ethernet tech. You need to span a 200ft rise plus however many feet there are to the dish location and, at the other end, the router in someone's apartment (if I understand what you are trying to do). Twisted pair ethernet is limited to 100m (~328ft) max for all cable combinations. For StarLink you could drop from gigabit ethernet to 100Mbit but users can tell if they know how to check.

Your best bet is probably the Gen1 kit at present (since we don't know what Gen3 is yet...) Gen1 has a power injector and uses RJ45, I believe that allows the injector to be remote from the router. Alongside the 100m of Ethernet cable you run 100m of local code approved power cable (what this is varies enormously with region) correctly sized for the run length and local code requirements. In the US IRC it's something like no more than 10 or 20% power loss. This is discussed in this gist (the original stuff, right at the top!) In fact at 240V you can probably ignore this; 300ft of 14AWG power cable is about 5Ω (there and back), 100W at 240V is 1/2.4A, so that's under 1W loss in the cable if I got the arithmetic right.

With Gen3 if it really is possible just to use off-the-shelf RJ45 in place of the StarLink (150ft) cable then you need CAT5e (as used with Gen2) or CAT6 (including CAT6A). CAT6 normally uses 23AWG in the varieties of cable you would use but quadruple check that it really is (ideally measure the actual resistance!) Normally look for "pure" copper cable (not CCA - copper clad aluminum) but if you are buying a pre-fabricated cable (easiest, normally the best connections) check the actual resistance; send it back if it is too high.

Resistance figures vary, this site https://www.kbe-elektrotechnik.com/en/service/awg-table/ has 70.1Ω/km, so that 7Ω/100m. All 8 conductors are used in Gen2; we certainly don't know about Gen3 yet, so 100m has 7/4Ω there and back, 3.5Ω round-trip. So look at the original gist; the original assertion is that Gen2 becomes unstable at 2.5Ω. If that is correct you are limited to 70m for a CAT6 cable. Doing the same calcs for CAT5e at 24AWG, 89.2Ω/km, and I end up with a max run of 56m which is close to the longest, 150ft, official StarLink cable (CAT5e).

You could try a longer cable and check for stability of the system with the original router and, for Gen2, one or other of the ways of adapting the connectors at each end to RJ45 (minimizing the probably 24AWG CAT5e that is left.)

If you are actually building the structure then make sure there is building power on the roof, make sure the apartment (etc) owners/lessors pay for the shared power in their lease agreement, stick a suitable (SFP) router up there and run fibre to each floor, or maybe even each unit. Get some techie in to set up a commercial internet link, possibly a commercial StarLink one and do the maintenance (which will be required.) It is possible to do individual StarLink antennas with that arrangement but you put the routers in bypass mode on the roof and run the data down using VPN tech; techie required (a good one.)

Thank you very much. The building is new so I do have power on the roof. We don’t have any good techies here. I think what I might do is wait and buy the gen3 for my place only. Drop the RJ45 down 200’ to the modem in the apartment and see how that works. Can you recommend a good cable? I have a voltage tester, but never used the ohm meter. So that part is new to me. I know I would put the test leads on each end and make sure I have it on the correct wire.What do I set the meter at to read the resistance? So I assume the lower the resistance number the better off I am.  I am getting a great education here. Thank you Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone On Friday, December 15, 2023, 4:09 PM, John Bowler ***@***.***> wrote: Re: ***@***.*** commented on this gist. So tell me what I need to know in plain English if you would. I think I would need rj45 cable, but what gauge and cable type is best? You're at the limit of copper (twisted pair) Ethernet tech. You need to span a 200ft rise plus however many feet there are to the dish location and, at the other end, the router in someone's apartment (if I understand what you are trying to do). Twisted pair ethernet is limited to 100m (~328ft) max for all cable combinations. For StarLink you could drop from gigabit ethernet to 100Mbit but users can tell if they know how to check. Your best bet is probably the Gen1 kit at present (since we don't know what Gen3 is yet...) Gen1 has a power injector and uses RJ45, I believe that allows the injector to be remote from the router. Alongside the 100m of Ethernet cable you run 100m of local code approved power cable (what this is varies enormously with region) correctly sized for the run length and local code requirements. In the US IRC it's something like no more than 10 or 20% power loss. This is discussed in this gist (the original stuff, right at the top!) In fact at 240V you can probably ignore this; 300ft of 14AWG power cable is about 5Ω (there and back), 100W at 240V is 1/2.4A, so that's under 1W loss in the cable if I got the arithmetic right. With Gen3 if it really is possible just to use off-the-shelf RJ45 in place of the StarLink (150ft) cable then you need CAT5e (as used with Gen2) or CAT6 (including CAT6A). CAT6 normally uses 23AWG in the varieties of cable you would use but quadruple check that it really is (ideally measure the actual resistance!) Normally look for "pure" copper cable (not CCA - copper clad aluminum) but if you are buying a pre-fabricated cable (easiest, normally the best connections) check the actual resistance; send it back if it is too high. Resistance figures vary, this site https://www.kbe-elektrotechnik.com/en/service/awg-table/ has 70.1Ω/km, so that 7Ω/100m. All 8 conductors are used in Gen2; we certainly don't know about Gen3 yet, so 100m has 7/4Ω there and back, 3.5Ω round-trip. So look at the original gist; the original assertion is that Gen2 becomes unstable at 2.5Ω. If that is correct you are limited to 70m for a CAT6 cable. Doing the same calcs for CAT5e at 24AWG, 89.2Ω/km, and I end up with a max run of 56m which is close to the longest, 150ft, official StarLink cable (CAT5e). You could try a longer cable and check for stability of the system with the original router and, for Gen2, one or other of the ways of adapting the connectors at each end to RJ45 (minimizing the probably 24AWG CAT5e that is left.) If you are actually building the structure then make sure there is building power on the roof, make sure the apartment (etc) owners/lessors pay for the shared power in their lease agreement, stick a suitable (SFP) router up there and run fibre to each floor, or maybe even each unit. Get some techie in to set up a commercial internet link, possibly a commercial StarLink one and do the maintenance (which will be required.) It is possible to do individual StarLink antennas with that arrangement but you put the routers in bypass mode on the roof and run the data down using VPN tech; techie required (a good one.) — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub or unsubscribe. You are receiving this email because you commented on the thread. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS or Android.                                                            

On a general note WiFi-6 has a stated range of 45m; curiously close, well, the same as, the length of the longest StarLink Gen 3 cable. This is "line of sight" - i.e. nothing between the sender and receiver other than thin (we hope) air. WiFi-5 comes in at 25m or so, about 80ft, but I run WiFi (not WiFi 6 yet) between my own buildings which are about 100ft apart.

So a Gen3 with power and the standard (package) setup can, in fact, do a WiFi link at way more than the StarLink max speed to something 150ft away; WiFi-6 maxes out at 9.6Gbps. I manage that on my CAT5e Cu twisted pair network but only in a carefully tested setup; less than 100ft (maybe 50). In fact WiFi-5 at a theoretical 3.5Gbps is still way more than StarLink (residential) and my own copper network.

TP-Link (who I regard as reputable) have a range of "WiFi extenders" starting (based on Amazon prices) from $20 for a WiFi-5 one. So far as I can see it should be possible to use one of these to set up what is effectively a point-to-point solution; no need for copper or fibre. I've looked at p2p in the past but they have been somewhat more expensive ($100's rather than $10's) and often lower bandwidth (10Mbps).

The solution does require power at both ends but I find that fairly easy (at low power) even without solar.

I have a CradlePoint router w/ a PoE++ (802.3bt) port that will push up to 60W. I don't live in a snowy area, so I plan to keep the snow melt off. My thought was that I could swap the pinouts to make the antenna work directly from the router as a PSE (power source equipment) and eliminate a whole bunch of custom cables, and a dedicated PoE injector. However, it doesn't seem to be working....

Is this possible? If so, how should I build the termination that comes out of the antenna and connects to the PoE router port?

Is this possible?

No. The StarLink antenna doesn't support any of the PoE protocols so a PSE which uses them simply won't send out any power. The latest 802.3 standards have plenty of power but it would require a 48V 802.3bt PoE tap (a splitter) to get the 48V out , e.g:

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Industrial-Gigabit-PoE-Splitter/dp/B08KYHX1QS

Then it would be necessary to take the 48V output and wire it back to a passive injector... In other words pretty much twice as much work (you just save power cabling from the 802.3bt PSE to the PD, the antenna.)

Off topic but still relevant to understanding the Gen 2 antenna here is a good, clear, description of how the 802.3 PoE standards work:

https://www.skyworksinc.com/-/media/SkyWorks/SL/documents/public/white-papers/understanding-the-ieee-8023bt-poe-standard.pdf

The circuit breakdown of the Gen2 router suggests to me that it lacks the electronics to do that, although it does seem to have the ability to measure current draw so there might be some communication capability there. The mixed up wiring of the ethernet pairs, however, prevents 802.3bt working; IRC the antenna looks like a shorted-out PD.

I have a CradlePoint router w/ a PoE++ (802.3bt) port that will push up to 60W. I don't live in a snowy area, so I plan to keep the snow melt off. My thought was that I could swap the pinouts to make the antenna work directly from the router as a PSE (power source equipment) and eliminate a whole bunch of custom cables, and a dedicated PoE injector. However, it doesn't seem to be working....

Is this possible? If so, how should I build the termination that comes out of the antenna and connects to the PoE router port?

60w isnt going to cut it.