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I have been waiting patiently for almost two years to get it the old-fashioned way. Just canceled my longstanding deposit, and ordered Starlink for RVs. It he

I have been waiting patiently for almost two years to get it the old-fashioned way. Just canceled my longstanding deposit, and ordered Starlink for RVs. It helps that I really wanted it for my RV anyway, and just assumed all along that at some point in the not-to-distant future they were going to allow that. Fairly expensive, but it will allow me to work remotely from a very beautiful, remote location, and I intend to take full advantage of that.

madeofpalk 4y ago
> from a very beautiful, remote location As long as you're nowhere near a tree.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- emteycz 4y ago
  Wow, what an insurmountable problem!!! All plans off!
HWR_14 4y ago
> it will allow me to work remotely from a very beautiful, remote location Do you plan on using generators? Setting up solar farms (assuming you're the first one to pull into that spot and can claim the sunny area)? Most tech-job setups seem fairly electricity intensive.
- rtpg 4y ago
  There are many places in the world that are beautiful, more or less in the countryside, yet have access to electricity and running water. And hey, if your tech job is just typing along on your Macbook, you're actually not pretty high in energy usage! They're machines that can run on tiny batteries, after all. Same as a fridge, basically. Dunno how much you can get out of RV solar panels on a good day though.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Especially if your vehicle has battery capacity itself if some sort - you can charge the batteries on grid in the morning and head out to the lake all day.
  - zie 4y ago
    > Dunno how much you can get out of RV solar panels on a good day though. As much as any other solar really, it just depends on how many panels you can put up there.
    - dzhiurgis 4y ago
      Minor nitpick, but if you use flush semi-flexible panels vs rigid ones their efficiency is 10-17% vs 16-23%. Flush ones are way easier to install, basically glued on, while rigid ones need some sort of support system.
      - elcritch 4y ago
        One big downside of semi-flexible panels are how susceptible they are to damage from hail. One big storm can kill 40-50% of their efficiency. Here’s some test results: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/01/f7/pvmrw13_ps2_westpak_brown.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/01/f7/pvmrw13_p...
      - rootusrootus 4y ago
        The flush ones don't last nearly as long, either. AFAIK most manufacturers, and most aftermarket installs as well are using rigid panels mounted with z-brackets. More effort to install, but gluing flexible panels to a membrane roof wasn't what I wanted to do either.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    I have 515W on top of the roof of my sprinter. I also have a custom-built 12VDC-direct mini-ITX system that I use in the van (160W TDP). Because I do native development, not web related stuff, that means compiling a lot. The computer uses more power than the refridgerator. The 515W is enough for about 7-8 months of the year at the range of latitudes spanned by the USA. It's not enough during winter even in sunny NM or AZ.
- dntrkv 4y ago
  1kW portable battery, connected to a 100w solar panel, should guarantee you indefinite power in most places. Just a 1kW battery should easily be enough to power an M1 Macbook for a week's worth of work.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    The starlink device uses about 100 W itself. That is not at all enough to power it.
    - kimmk 4y ago
      This used to be the case, however the new dish along with recent firmware updates brings the power usage down to around 50 W on average.
      - colechristensen 4y ago
        50W is still more than 1 kWh per day.
        dntrkv 4y ago
        Are you working 24 hours of the day? An M1 Macbook will draw an average of about 30W under load. Starlink dish is about 50W. 80W * 8 hours = 640Wh With a 100W solar panel generating 200Wh total throughout the day, you would use up 440Wh of your 1000Wh battery. These are conservative estimates. My M1 pulls less than 20W at most times and you can get well over 200Wh from a 100W panel in a day. Tweak the numbers just a bit and you get indefinite power for a 40 hour work week.
        Scoundreller 4y ago
        Issue is, if you're really in the sticks (and therefore no 2g/3g/4g/5g service), you're completely disconnected unless the thing is on, idling away at 50w. Sure you're not using data while you're sleeping, but you might want to be able to get a call from someone if they really need to get in touch with you. Or other passive tasks where you want to at least take a call/message/email if required. Even in a residential environment, I've toyed with a timer that cuts my ISP modem and router overnight (and kills smart devices from trying to phone home...) because falling back to 3g/4g saves me ~15 watts, but it's honestly dollars/year of savings.
- rustyboy 4y ago
  I've worked remote for 2 years in an travel trailer with a 250w solar panel and 200kwh battery and have never needed shore power. I use my phone for hotspotting and use a mac book, they both charge in about 2 hours so I run for 2-3 hours, charge it, run 2-3 hours, and then charge it before logging off. That said, yea - no second monitor, I close a lot of apps when i'm not using them (looking at you docker and chrome), and have a setup where I ssh onto a machine or use ci-cd agents to do a lot of my work. edit: that said, this is a lot easier in sunnier places (you don't need to use electricity for heat) which I tend to prefer. I got close to needing a campground after a week or two in WY/MT near winter.
  - driverdan 4y ago
    Do you have a typo in that "200kwh battery"? There's no way you have that much capacity.
    - jermaustin1 4y ago
      You CAN have that much capacity, but you would basically have to build the RV out of battery cells. I'm assuming they meant 20kwh, which is still HUGE for an RV, but they did say they never needed shore power in the last 2 years of living, so I guess, its possible.
      - mikestew 4y ago
        With the kind of draws described, I believe OP got the terms confused and meant "200ah". We've got a 200ah house battery in our RV, and you can run low-load stuff like a laptop and a monitor for a long time on that battery. Hell, fire up the 1100W microwave and heat some lunch. Just do it early so that the solar panels can refill before dark.
        PaulLeiby 4y ago
        And of course 200 Ah (@12VDC) is 2.4 kWh. BTW, I have a couple of these LiFePo 100Ah batteries, and they are great. But I do get a kick out of how the capital cost is about $800 USD to store 1 kWh, or $0.15 worth of electricity (omitting solar cell cost solar charge controller cost, which are comparatively minor)! Still, the grid independence (for sustainable Tiny Electrical Living) is a wonderful thing.
- iramiller 4y ago
  I have 400aH worth of lithium batteries and 600 watts of solar (not laid out in an ideal configuration down the sides of the roof on my airstream). I have found I use 60-90watts AC to power my starlink. I can easily go all day even with 2-3 laptops and external monitors (150 watts or so). The solar keeps up and even does a little charging during the day. Every other day when it’s cloudy or rainy I will need to top up with the small generator but that is easy to do with lithium batteries since they charge at the full 120amps unlike lead acid that taper the current significantly.
  - texasbigdata 4y ago
    Did you study electrical engineering? Can you recommend a laymans resource for getting smart on how you did those calcs? For example I’d struggle to figure out the battery size for a given wattage / amp of draw.
    - Breza 4y ago
      I got my ham radio license in March and I learned a lot about practical electricity while studying. Might be worth checking out some of the YouTube videos to see if it's up your alley.
    - 35mm 4y ago
      Not the commenter, but it’s fairly straightforward. I’ve actually made a simple calculator[1] for this, but you don’t really need it. What you want to do is get a good picture of your actual usage per day in kWh. You can use a Kill-a-Watt plug or similar (a device that kWh that pass through it). Once you have your daily kWh use, you can multiply by however many days you want to run without charging the battery. A lot of off grid solar people go for 2-4 days. That gives you the useable battery size in kWh you need. LiFePo4 batteries (arguably the best for this setup) typically have 80-90% useable capacity. Lead acid (the more traditional kind) have around 50%. Adjust for that and you know what size of battery to buy. A lot of batteries are defined as Amp hours and voltage. Multiply them together to get watt hours. Max_kWh = (Ah * V) / 1000 Useable_kWh = Max_kWh * useable_percent [1] https://uplevelgreen.com/off-grid-solar-calculator https://uplevelgreen.com/off-grid-solar-calculator
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  I have 6kWh of LFP batteries in my RV and 990W of solar on the roof. I do bring a generator just in case but only rarely ever use it. Even at 90W I don’t think I’d have power problems, at least not during the summer months.
- turtlebits 4y ago
  I worked out of my off-grid cabin the last 18 mo or so - you can easily consume under 150w of power (monitor, laptop, lights, 5g phone, router). Starlink does add a lot of draw (~100w)
- 8note 4y ago
  You don't need a ton of solar to get your laptop and phone running and charging for a 4-5 hours a day. Combining a few backpack solar panels does the trick for me
tjr225 4y ago
Are you working remotely from the same state you report your income in?
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  Almost entirely yes, my preferred remote sites are all within the same state. I'd have to pay my home state taxes anyway. And the nearest state I'd be likely to work from occasionally has no income tax. But even if it weren't that way for me, I don't think I'd worry that much about someone accusing me of skipping out on taxes I should pay because I parked my RV in another state. It's not a permanent address.
  - tjr225 4y ago
    I don’t think that is the way the IRS views things.
    - lazide 4y ago
      The IRS doesn’t care. They’re federal.
FireBeyond 4y ago
Hell, on r/starlink there are multiple users reporting that their fixed installations have had no service for a month+, customer support is completely unresponsive, but are still being billed. So, even getting it doesn't necessarily fix things.
- pathartl 4y ago
  It seems to be common with Musk-linked services. Tesla Solar has been acting the same way.

madeofpalk 4y ago

> from a very beautiful, remote location As long as you're nowhere near a tree.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
emteycz 4y ago
Wow, what an insurmountable problem!!! All plans off!

HWR_14 4y ago

> it will allow me to work remotely from a very beautiful, remote location Do you plan on using generators? Setting up solar farms (assuming you're the first one to pull into that spot and can claim the sunny area)? Most tech-job setups seem fairly electricity intensive.

rtpg 4y ago
There are many places in the world that are beautiful, more or less in the countryside, yet have access to electricity and running water. And hey, if your tech job is just typing along on your Macbook, you're actually not pretty high in energy usage! They're machines that can run on tiny batteries, after all. Same as a fridge, basically. Dunno how much you can get out of RV solar panels on a good day though.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Especially if your vehicle has battery capacity itself if some sort - you can charge the batteries on grid in the morning and head out to the lake all day.
- zie 4y ago
  > Dunno how much you can get out of RV solar panels on a good day though. As much as any other solar really, it just depends on how many panels you can put up there.
  - dzhiurgis 4y ago
    Minor nitpick, but if you use flush semi-flexible panels vs rigid ones their efficiency is 10-17% vs 16-23%. Flush ones are way easier to install, basically glued on, while rigid ones need some sort of support system.
    - elcritch 4y ago
      One big downside of semi-flexible panels are how susceptible they are to damage from hail. One big storm can kill 40-50% of their efficiency. Here’s some test results: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/01/f7/pvmrw13_ps2_westpak_brown.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/01/f7/pvmrw13_p...
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      The flush ones don't last nearly as long, either. AFAIK most manufacturers, and most aftermarket installs as well are using rigid panels mounted with z-brackets. More effort to install, but gluing flexible panels to a membrane roof wasn't what I wanted to do either.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  I have 515W on top of the roof of my sprinter. I also have a custom-built 12VDC-direct mini-ITX system that I use in the van (160W TDP). Because I do native development, not web related stuff, that means compiling a lot. The computer uses more power than the refridgerator. The 515W is enough for about 7-8 months of the year at the range of latitudes spanned by the USA. It's not enough during winter even in sunny NM or AZ.
dntrkv 4y ago
1kW portable battery, connected to a 100w solar panel, should guarantee you indefinite power in most places. Just a 1kW battery should easily be enough to power an M1 Macbook for a week's worth of work.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  The starlink device uses about 100 W itself. That is not at all enough to power it.
  - kimmk 4y ago
    This used to be the case, however the new dish along with recent firmware updates brings the power usage down to around 50 W on average.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      50W is still more than 1 kWh per day.
      - dntrkv 4y ago
        Are you working 24 hours of the day? An M1 Macbook will draw an average of about 30W under load. Starlink dish is about 50W. 80W * 8 hours = 640Wh With a 100W solar panel generating 200Wh total throughout the day, you would use up 440Wh of your 1000Wh battery. These are conservative estimates. My M1 pulls less than 20W at most times and you can get well over 200Wh from a 100W panel in a day. Tweak the numbers just a bit and you get indefinite power for a 40 hour work week.
        Scoundreller 4y ago
        Issue is, if you're really in the sticks (and therefore no 2g/3g/4g/5g service), you're completely disconnected unless the thing is on, idling away at 50w. Sure you're not using data while you're sleeping, but you might want to be able to get a call from someone if they really need to get in touch with you. Or other passive tasks where you want to at least take a call/message/email if required. Even in a residential environment, I've toyed with a timer that cuts my ISP modem and router overnight (and kills smart devices from trying to phone home...) because falling back to 3g/4g saves me ~15 watts, but it's honestly dollars/year of savings.
rustyboy 4y ago
I've worked remote for 2 years in an travel trailer with a 250w solar panel and 200kwh battery and have never needed shore power. I use my phone for hotspotting and use a mac book, they both charge in about 2 hours so I run for 2-3 hours, charge it, run 2-3 hours, and then charge it before logging off. That said, yea - no second monitor, I close a lot of apps when i'm not using them (looking at you docker and chrome), and have a setup where I ssh onto a machine or use ci-cd agents to do a lot of my work. edit: that said, this is a lot easier in sunnier places (you don't need to use electricity for heat) which I tend to prefer. I got close to needing a campground after a week or two in WY/MT near winter.
- driverdan 4y ago
  Do you have a typo in that "200kwh battery"? There's no way you have that much capacity.
  - jermaustin1 4y ago
    You CAN have that much capacity, but you would basically have to build the RV out of battery cells. I'm assuming they meant 20kwh, which is still HUGE for an RV, but they did say they never needed shore power in the last 2 years of living, so I guess, its possible.
    - mikestew 4y ago
      With the kind of draws described, I believe OP got the terms confused and meant "200ah". We've got a 200ah house battery in our RV, and you can run low-load stuff like a laptop and a monitor for a long time on that battery. Hell, fire up the 1100W microwave and heat some lunch. Just do it early so that the solar panels can refill before dark.
      - PaulLeiby 4y ago
        And of course 200 Ah (@12VDC) is 2.4 kWh. BTW, I have a couple of these LiFePo 100Ah batteries, and they are great. But I do get a kick out of how the capital cost is about $800 USD to store 1 kWh, or $0.15 worth of electricity (omitting solar cell cost solar charge controller cost, which are comparatively minor)! Still, the grid independence (for sustainable Tiny Electrical Living) is a wonderful thing.
iramiller 4y ago
I have 400aH worth of lithium batteries and 600 watts of solar (not laid out in an ideal configuration down the sides of the roof on my airstream). I have found I use 60-90watts AC to power my starlink. I can easily go all day even with 2-3 laptops and external monitors (150 watts or so). The solar keeps up and even does a little charging during the day. Every other day when it’s cloudy or rainy I will need to top up with the small generator but that is easy to do with lithium batteries since they charge at the full 120amps unlike lead acid that taper the current significantly.
- texasbigdata 4y ago
  Did you study electrical engineering? Can you recommend a laymans resource for getting smart on how you did those calcs? For example I’d struggle to figure out the battery size for a given wattage / amp of draw.
  - Breza 4y ago
    I got my ham radio license in March and I learned a lot about practical electricity while studying. Might be worth checking out some of the YouTube videos to see if it's up your alley.
  - 35mm 4y ago
    Not the commenter, but it’s fairly straightforward. I’ve actually made a simple calculator[1] for this, but you don’t really need it. What you want to do is get a good picture of your actual usage per day in kWh. You can use a Kill-a-Watt plug or similar (a device that kWh that pass through it). Once you have your daily kWh use, you can multiply by however many days you want to run without charging the battery. A lot of off grid solar people go for 2-4 days. That gives you the useable battery size in kWh you need. LiFePo4 batteries (arguably the best for this setup) typically have 80-90% useable capacity. Lead acid (the more traditional kind) have around 50%. Adjust for that and you know what size of battery to buy. A lot of batteries are defined as Amp hours and voltage. Multiply them together to get watt hours. Max_kWh = (Ah * V) / 1000 Useable_kWh = Max_kWh * useable_percent [1] https://uplevelgreen.com/off-grid-solar-calculator https://uplevelgreen.com/off-grid-solar-calculator
rootusrootus 4y ago
I have 6kWh of LFP batteries in my RV and 990W of solar on the roof. I do bring a generator just in case but only rarely ever use it. Even at 90W I don’t think I’d have power problems, at least not during the summer months.
turtlebits 4y ago
I worked out of my off-grid cabin the last 18 mo or so - you can easily consume under 150w of power (monitor, laptop, lights, 5g phone, router). Starlink does add a lot of draw (~100w)
8note 4y ago
You don't need a ton of solar to get your laptop and phone running and charging for a 4-5 hours a day. Combining a few backpack solar panels does the trick for me

tjr225 4y ago

Are you working remotely from the same state you report your income in?

rootusrootus 4y ago
Almost entirely yes, my preferred remote sites are all within the same state. I'd have to pay my home state taxes anyway. And the nearest state I'd be likely to work from occasionally has no income tax. But even if it weren't that way for me, I don't think I'd worry that much about someone accusing me of skipping out on taxes I should pay because I parked my RV in another state. It's not a permanent address.
- tjr225 4y ago
  I don’t think that is the way the IRS views things.
  - lazide 4y ago
    The IRS doesn’t care. They’re federal.

FireBeyond 4y ago

Hell, on r/starlink there are multiple users reporting that their fixed installations have had no service for a month+, customer support is completely unresponsive, but are still being billed. So, even getting it doesn't necessarily fix things.

pathartl 4y ago
It seems to be common with Musk-linked services. Tesla Solar has been acting the same way.