Working Off Grid With Starlink

[adaykin]

I'm scheduled to take delivery of an R1S in September.

I was wondering if anyone has tried working from a campsite using portable starlink and some way of charging devices? What was your experience like doing so?

I was thinking of using a solar generator to power the devices I use for work.

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[Donald Stanfield]

Yeah a few guys on here used their Starlink powered by their Rivian already.

 

[adaykin]

Starlink powered by their Rivian.

As in there's some sort of integration Rivian has with Starlink? Or you just mean it uses power from the vehicle?

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Used the power.

 

[BCondrey]

The multiple 120V outlets share a 1500 watt inverter, thats about 12 to 13 amps. Check and see what the Starlink requires. I bet you can power the Starlink, and charge laptops and such no issue.

 

[Thedude]

I’ve been using Starlink for almost three years and living off grid for a year now, no issues at all. For what you want to do just plug it into the truck and you’ll be up in running in a few minutes.

 

[adaykin]

I’ve been using Starlink for almost three years and living off grid for a year now, no issues at all. For what you want to do just plug it into the truck and you’ll be up in running in a few minutes.

Glad it's worked out for you. If the battery is at 80% and you power your starlink and laptop for a week with the car battery and don't drive at all that week, what would the battery be at at the end of the week?

 

[txtravwill]

Just know that if you get Starlink RV/remote plan you get less priority of data, can be slow at times, especially peak - hard to work with video, etc. Our neighbors use that and we have the Residential (permanent location) plan and ours is way faster. Like we tested at 80mbps+ and they were getting only 4-5mbps+ at the same time and location.

The key thing though is if you sign up with Starlink for the RV plan right now, they will NOT let you switch to residential with it. Kinda sucks if need it for that later. Same if you have residential, and switch to RV (which you can do), you just can't switch back yet.

 

[Thedude]

Glad it's worked out for you. If the battery is at 80% and you power your starlink and laptop for a week with the car battery and don't drive at all that week, what would the battery be at at the end of the week?

I don't have the answer for that because I never used the truck to power it long term like that. My laptop I'm on right now has a 150 watt charger and the Starlink runs about 75 watts. Rough math for leaving both running for five days straight is 27kwh plus added losses for the conversion of DC to AC at the truck's inverter. That's about 22% of the battery give or take.

 

[pc500]

Starlink will work fine. In many cases the better way to do it is a hotspot off your phone, but some places people travel particularly out west have challenging coverage.

 

[MichaelD]

I have Residential + Mobility, which they sadly do not offer anymore. Full speed locally, works on the road, and I can change addresses for full speed again if I move / stay someplace for awhile. These are still slow speeds compared to what they used to advertise, but the flexibility (works just about anywhere) is great.

 

[Rivian_Hugh_III]

Glad it's worked out for you. If the battery is at 80% and you power your starlink and laptop for a week with the car battery and don't drive at all that week, what would the battery be at at the end of the week?

African or European battery?

 

[Craigins]

Glad it's worked out for you. If the battery is at 80% and you power your starlink and laptop for a week with the car battery and don't drive at all that week, what would the battery be at at the end of the week?

If you take the battery capacity of 135 kWh.
135 kWh * 0.8 = 108 kWh.

From the starlink website: Average consumption is 50-70W
The router can be powered by PoE, assuming it doesn't take the higher gen PoE, that should be around another 30W.

100W on the higher end for the internet connectivity.

Laptop power consumption will vary greatly based on use. My google of Dell Laptop Powersupply comes back with 45W as the first result.

With a max of 145W continuous draw, you'll be using 160W from the DC pack assuming 10% loss for the inverter.

168 hours in a week, multiply by 160W to get ~27kWh. That drops you from 108kWh to 81kWh. 81kWh is ~60%. This will be the higher end of the drain, as you won't be using your laptop at full capacity 24/7, and typically power supplies are over specced a little.

Also note that the vehicles have some level of vampire drain, each vehicle appears to be slightly different. Mine's about 1-1.5% per day. So make sure to factor that in. I'd also recommend disabling proximity lock/unlock, turning off the radio/climate controls/gear guard, and avoid opening/closing doors.

I believe I mathed correctly here.

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