Starlink Mini vs Starlink Performance

J

Jfrano

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 12, 2018
Messages
470
Fluid Motion Model
C-30 CB
Vessel Name
June Sea
Looking to adding STARLINK to my RT29CB.
We plan on cruising from Pennsylvania along the coast to Key West beginning November. Then comeback north a bit and cross over to the Bahamas for 2 months including Bimini, Abaco and the Exumas. Is one unit preferable to the other for this trip? How long does an installation take? Did people do themselves?

Thanks
Joe
 
The Starlink Mini has been more than adequate for my needs. I appreciate its low power draw - about 20W. On my R25, my "installation" is that I put it in a rod holder and plug it into the outlet below the electric grill.
 
2008 R-25 here with starlink mini ... I see 75-100mb when I stuff it above the helm in the overhead cubby. Keeps it out of the weather and out of the way and no real "install" needed ... with only a little fiberglass between it and the sky it seems to work well for any streaming needs my kids have. If I need more speed I can open the hatch and set it on the roof ... 150-250mb with unobstructed view is really easy. The low power draw is amazing. I run a standard unit at home and it pulls twice the power of the mini. These speeds are from SE Alaska if that matters.
 
My standerd dish pulls 28 watts, ran off 12volts. The peplink router I run (also off 12 volts) is another 6 watts. I like the new plans Starlink has come out with. $50/mo for 50gbs, and $1/gb thereafter. And $5/mo thereafter to suspend service, while still getting 500kps of service. Starlink got a whole lot cheaper for our limited usage. (I use cellular most of the time).
 
We have the Starlink mini (on the boat and RV as needed) and the Starlink standard on the house at home. The mini seems to work nearly as well as the standard but with less power, size and weight. I think the standard is the way to go for the boat and RV, much easier to store and move around.
 
Thanks. So I picked up the mini. It comes with a 120v connector and long cable with barrel connectors on either end. Would like to mount up on the command bridge 12 outlet. What hardware do I need to utilize my 12v outlet ? Would rather not have to have inverter on all the time,

Thanks
 
We use this converter on our mini. Just add a cigarette adaptor to plug in on the bridge.
I have the mini sitting under the canvas sport bridge cover on our Solara S310 plus have a Bimini. Never aligned it either. We had great signal the whole time on our Canada trip this last spring. We were as far north as Broughton islands. Love making WiFi calls when there is not enough service on cellular.

Amazon.com: Starlink Mini 12V Adapter DC Step Up Converter Starlink Mini Power Cord 12V/24V to 30V 3.5A Starlink Mini Power Supply Boost Conversion with Fuse : Electronics

Amazon.com: Starlink Mini 12V Adapter DC Step Up Converter Starlink Mini Power Cord 12V/24V to 30V 3.5A Starlink Mini Power Supply Boost Conversion with Fuse : Electronics
www.amazon.com
 
Looks good. Where do you keep the inverter, looks like it’s waterproof?
 
So many options for this available now. Like Mike and Sarah we went with a similar converter (but 36V instead of 24V and added a panel barrel jack on the output to use the standard Starlink cable and hard wired the converter input to 12V).

If you have a 12v cigarette socket nearby you now you can just get something like this:

STARGEAR Starlink Mini Car Adapter 12V to 24V DC Step Up Converter with 60W Car Cigarette Lighter Adapter, Starlink Mini 12V Adapters Supports 16 AWG Official 30M, Ideal for RV, Boat, Trailer https://a.co/d/eVbu38i

Plenty of other similar products out there as well.

With a short enough (<15ft) and thick enough (>16 AWG) cable you can go straight from 12V as well if you keep your battery voltage up. (>12.4V)
 
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Replaced KVH LTE-1 with Starlink Mini owing to unreliability issues with KVH. I use all antenna-routers in bridge ("bypass") mode. Starlink Mini is vastly superior in all respects except power draw (idle 20W vs 4W); in fact I'm planning to abandon my failover setup (was RogueWave<>KVH bridged into a Synology WRX560) if Starlink continues to perform so well. For the moment I'm using the A/C adaptor for POE injector but will cannibalize the DC setup I had for KVH. I still like having a secure/dedicated remotely-accessible router governing everything aboard (but most will be satisfied with the built-in Starlink Mini router). As for RogueWave failover: I find reliable WiFi connection only when docked, under which scenario I'm shore-powered anyway (might as well rely on Starlink); at anchor or mooring buoys WiFi is invariably useless. Location CDN gulf islands - Starlink upload/download speeds are comparable to cable. Mounted Starlink externally on crossbars, reasoning that under snow conditions (= max power draw) I'm docked/shorepowered.
 
Jfrano said:
Looks good. Where do you keep the inverter, looks like it’s waterproof?
Click to expand...
The converter is protected by the Sport bridge canvas. So it stays dry. It does seem like it is sealed up well. We use the converter and Starlink when camping too. So our mini is not permanently installed on the boat.
 
On our 31, we use this for the converter:
We've used this for months camping in our van and we have had no drops or issues with it. I finally used it on the boat this weekend and it worked well.

We utilize the 12volt under the dinette (we had ranger run a permanent cable up and out) and we attach the mini to our rails with the following:

It's easy to remove the mini and converter so we can use it with our van when camping. I've been happy with the mini - better connectivity performance than our old gen2 (especially in the trees) and throughput performance is still very good.

Paul
 
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