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Hacking the Rectangular Starlink Dishy Cable
@bghira
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bghira commented Apr 30, 2023

well my Tycon was ruined by the Amazon cheap-ass PSU. when opening it up. the feet of the power module are separated from the PCB. they're not soldered very well and the heat pops them off.

@bghira
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bghira commented Apr 30, 2023

@dougbrouwer that's the one that'll work.

@dougbrouwer
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dougbrouwer commented Apr 30, 2023

"the feet of the power module are separated from the PCB."
Wow! That's pretty strange for a 130W rated device that carries a 3 year warranty.....
If Tycon doesn't replace mine under the warranty I'll open it up and report back.

@jbowler
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jbowler commented May 1, 2023

@dougbrouwer do you have any of the four connections to the buck converter connected (directly or indirectly) to ground? By "ground" I mean a structure of vehicle ground that part of the dish might be connected to? For example if the mast is grounded or the shielded cable from the dish. The Tycon shouldn't be connecting the shield to anything; it just passes the connection straight through, but if you have a surge suppressor inline or if you connect to a shielded port on the router that probably would.

@dougbrouwer
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any of the four connections to the buck converter connected (directly or indirectly) to ground?

Not any any way that's intentional. I'm simply using shielded RJ-45 connectors, and I'm being careful to connect the wire ground to the shield.

@dougbrouwer
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well my Tycon was ruined by the Amazon cheap-ass PSU. when opening it up.

@bghira What's the secret to opening up the Tycon injector? It's not obvious to me. Is it glued shut?

@jbowler
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jbowler commented May 2, 2023

any of the four connections to the buck converter connected (directly or indirectly) to ground?

Not any any way that's intentional. I'm simply using shielded RJ-45 connectors, and I'm being careful to connect the wire ground to the shield.

I'm not sure what you mean, but if you manage to ground the PoE then it is quite possible that you will blow it.

@bghira
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bghira commented May 4, 2023

@dougbrouwer a dremel

@Shangrila385
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Shangrila385 commented May 5, 2023 via email

@jbowler
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jbowler commented May 5, 2023

Can anyone explain in layman terms how to make a cable to use on starlink that is 300’ long and will work without losing signal strength? The dish is being put on the roof of a high rise bldg. And cable dropped down a shaft to lower floor.

That's actually very easy assuming there is a weatherproof location with power within 150' (or, cheaper, 75') of the dish location. That's pretty much a cert for a highrise. You put the StarLink router in the weatherproof enclosure, connect it to the building supply and connect it to the dish using the standard StarLink cables and the standard (USD25) Ethernet Dongle also from StarLink. Put the router into bypass mode, plug a standard 100m (300') ethernet cable into the dongle and the other end into the router on the lower floor.

There are lots of other ways, including the recently advertized stuff on Amazon that I quoted recently, but they are more expensive and, in most (but not all) cases, involve cutting cables. Easiest is to stick the router on the roof and do the drop from the dongle.

Anyone familiar with ethernet setup will know how to do this once they get their head round the weird StarLink router/dongle arrangement.

@Shangrila385
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Shangrila385 commented May 5, 2023 via email

@JustOneGuyHere
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I have a bunch of questions about Starlink cables. Not a regular here at all, and not a techie but also not a total idiot. I don't know if this is the right thread. I'm here because someone posted the link in a Starlink discussion. I don't want to start in on it for nothing.

@jbowler
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jbowler commented Jul 22, 2023

@JustOneGuyHere; it's a gist about getting a cable longer than the official StarLink 150ft cable for where the dish (the rectangular one, the v2 IRC) is more than 150ft from a power source. Since it's about power delivery the gist described how to build a new cable (by cutting the original one) with an additional power (PoE) injector. As a result it covers the wiring of the cable (standard ethernet, non-standard PoE). It applies to other cases where the cable is not that long but where it is desired to get rid of the white "tombstone" router. Things other than PoE requirements are incidental; there's some discussion about other things (e.g. I described one, apparently, common failure mode of the system) but it's slightly off-topic.

@JustOneGuyHere
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JustOneGuyHere commented Jul 22, 2023

@JustOneGuyHere; it's a gist about getting a cable longer than the official StarLink 150ft cable for where the dish (the rectangular one, the v2 IRC) is more than 150ft from a power source. Since it's about power delivery the gist described how to build a new cable (by cutting the original one) with an additional power (PoE) injector. As a result it covers the wiring of the cable (standard ethernet, non-standard PoE). It applies to other cases where the cable is not that long but where it is desired to get rid of the white "tombstone" router. Things other than PoE requirements are incidental; there's some discussion about other things (e.g. I described one, apparently, common failure mode of the system) but it's slightly off-topic.

I'm a civilian, and as such a little pathetic, but at least I admit it. I think I've learned that the Snow Melt feature winds up melting cables for many users (including us) and that there really isn't a realistic hack for it. I'm also standard user with a 50-foot cable and a dish mounted atop a 10-foot pole near the house. After replacing one cable with great difficulty, I've given up on Snow Melt and have turned it all the way off forever.

I'm told that even without the feature, what's in the dish uses 25-35 watts and generates some heat. Not enough to melt heavy snow (which we get sometimes) but I wonder if it'll be enough to keep ice from forming to begin with. Sorry if this is off-topic. If so, trust me, I'm not any kind of whackjob and will retreat right away. If you happen to be able to answer the ice question, I'd appreciate it. If you can't, I'll understand.

@jbowler
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jbowler commented Jul 23, 2023

I wonder if it'll be enough to keep ice from forming to begin with.

I don't know what failed in your/Starlink's kit, so bearing that in mind I'm just going to state the obvious.

Turn pre-heat on. It will cost you more in electricity but it might stop the snow-melt surge and that might be your problem. It's pretty much not possible to melt that cable, certainly not with the stock StarLink kit, even if the biggest surge I measured (which I don't quite believe) continued for a whole summer (when the cable resistance is highest).

In any case buy a power outlet tester and make absolutely sure the outlet the tombstone is plugged into is correctly grounded. If the outlet tester says anything weird call an electrician. Failing to ground the dish might result in static build up causing a static discharge that is sufficient to fry one of the four connectors. Failing to have adequate grounding in a house is much more dangerous of course.

Bottom line is that you have a failed piece of electrical equipment that indicates a major fault. I had the same problem and my conclusions are documented above, in a lot of detail; I try not to give conclusions, rather I document what I observe. This is github after all. I have my own conclusion which I don't think I've disclosed here but if you read what I said you can draw your own too.

@JustOneGuyHere
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JustOneGuyHere commented Jul 23, 2023

Bottom line is that you have a failed piece of electrical equipment that indicates a major fault. I had the same problem and my conclusions are documented above, in a lot of detail; I try not to give conclusions, rather I document what I observe. This is github after all. I have my own conclusion which I don't think I've disclosed here but if you read what I said you can draw your own too.

I will check the grounding, but strongly doubt this is the problem. The house was built 6 years ago, and there have been no electrical problems anywhere in the house. The speed first slowed down greatly, then disconnected altogether. After several weeks (typical Starlink -- terrible customer service) a new router and cable showed up.

The new router didn't work on the first cable, and now works fine on the second cable. The issue of fried cables turns out to be common. The four wire pairs are 24 gauge, which is fine until the thermostat in the dish tells the router to increase the amperage to the dish, which heats up the electronics inside the dish enough to melt snow on the dish face. Unfortunately, those very same 24 gauge wires tend to get fried by the extra current, especially in places where there are months of thermostat-dictated heating events, most of which (ironically) aren't even necessary because they were generated not by the presence of snow but only by cold temperatures.

At this point, I've decided to turn off Snow Melt, and only wonder whether 25-35 watts still going to the dish will generate enough heat to keep ice from forming. I know it won't keep snow from accumulating, so I will handle that issue by duct-taping a windshield scraper to an extender pole and wiping snow off. I'm told that the film on the dish is fragile enough to make it inadvisable to scrape ice off, but I wonder whether or not that 25-35 watts of power going to the dish will be enough to keep ice off, or whether I'll just have to turn on Snow Melt during storms and risk another cable failure.

You know, this wouldn't be happening if Musk had simply hired a graduate of Electrician 101 class at a community college to build a cable with 14 gauge wiring inside, but that's not rocket science so why bother? Better to irritate a lot of people and ship out new cables with the same design flaw. It's what happens when you're too cool for school. LOL

@JustOneGuyHere
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Tested for grounding. As expected, no problem. I have ordered a current meter. Based on some reading, I believe that the router operates at 110-120V and 0.25A without Snow Melt, and at 5A in Snow Melt mode. I don't have a meter yet, but will be getting one and testing it. Given how many cables are being fried by Snow Melt (I'm far from the only Starlink user who's reported the fault), I think the 24-26 AWG wiring in the cables is inadequate for the task.

I will check to be sure, but I am pretty convinced that Starlink under-engineered the cable wiring. As I see it, they went full Rocket Science on the satellites and the dishes, but ignored Electrician 101 when they designed the cables. The remaining question is for how long I can overload the wiring before I fry the wires inside the poorly designed cable.

@jbowler
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jbowler commented Jul 24, 2023

5A in Snow Melt mode. I don't have a meter yet, but will be getting one and testing it.

Please report back on that. I live in SW Oregon so getting the dish to go into snow melt was pretty much impossible.

@JustOneGuyHere
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JustOneGuyHere commented Jul 24, 2023 via email

@JustOneGuyHere
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JustOneGuyHere commented Jul 24, 2023 via email

@jbowler
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jbowler commented Jul 24, 2023

I also found a Kill-A-Watt meter, and in summertime (right now), it's drawing 122-123V and 0.35-0.4A with Snow Melt off or on automatic. In pre-heat, it draws 0.9A.

It sounds like you are measuring the current into the router. The power consumption of the router itself should be fairly constant. There will be an extra power draw from the dish, but you can work out the raw power required by the router simply by powering it on with the dish not connected (do not connect or disconnect the dish to a powered on router; this causes a very significant power surge to the dish which is the most likely candidate for frying one or more of the four connectors). See my earlier comment:

https://gist.github.com/darconeous/8c7899c4d2f849b881d6c43be55066ee?permalink_comment_id=4479847#gistcomment-4479847

I got my figures using the Tycon power injector described in this gist (not the router) so I was able to measure the current being sent down the cable. I also put a 2A fuse inline with the power delivery so that limits the short-term average current. The fuse never blew even though there is good reason to believe that there is a startup current/power surge which might be as much as 7A for a (small) fraction of a second (hence my comment about about not connecting a "hot" router to the dish). My detailed measurements start here:

https://gist.github.com/darconeous/8c7899c4d2f849b881d6c43be55066ee?permalink_comment_id=4463407#gistcomment-4463407

If you look at one of the posts that follow:

https://gist.github.com/darconeous/8c7899c4d2f849b881d6c43be55066ee?permalink_comment_id=4466245#gistcomment-4466245

You will see the graph of what actually happens during boot and after. This is using a Fluke 189 logging multimeter, pretty much the industry standard when it was bought for me it but I admit I've owned it for coming on 30 years and never got it recalibrated. The most telling figures might be the ones in the first comment: the dish apparently does consume close to 90W for short periods of time. 90W is the capacity of the router, some injectors can handle more but certainly not all of them.

I believe I left "pre-heat" on after my first post and you can see that the actual dish consumption hits a max of 1.6A but averages somewhere in the range 0.6 to 0.9A. This corresponds to a maximum power of 77W and an average over 5s in the range 29W-43W, consistent with the stated router capabilities.

It's almost impossible to guesstimate the actual power going to the router without a calibration of the router efficiency; the router takes 110-250V input and converts it to its own internal power requirements (5V or 3.3V, probably 5) and the dish requirements (48V). Efficiencies will be in the range 80-90% but the design might be dumb.

Nevertheless whatever excess current is delivered to the router when the dish is connected it is certainly an underestimate of the current going to the dish, because that current is at ~48V.

All the evidence so far is that the design of the dish produces significant surge currents under some circumstances. In particular there is evidence that there might be a very high initial surge if a charged, hot, PoE injector is connected to the dish. This is what I was doing with my Tycon setup and the tester I was using (which I don't trust) reported a 7A surge.

The surge should be no big problem for the components involved because they are mostly passive, maybe all; it's not clear how many diodes StarLink put into the circuit but it sounds like "none", that's one way of getting more power. My own tests prove that in my system the thing that fried was the connection (the connector) at the dish. It fried in a way that is consistent with an instantaneous surge. What caused that surge is impossible to say.

@JustOneGuyHere
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JustOneGuyHere commented Jul 25, 2023 via email

@jbowler
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jbowler commented Jul 25, 2023

This is consistent what what I've been reading (maybe here?) that the dish use 0.30A with Snow Melt completely off.

That's consistent with my numbers; it would correspond to about 0.6A going to the dish. A rule of thumb assuming 80-90% efficiency in the router is that the current flowing to the dish MIGHT be about twice the extra current to the router. Maybe "pre-heat" increases it slightly but I suspect that will be thermostatically controlled (this doesn't cost enough money for StarLink to cost-reduce it out of the dish). I measure in February, before the current heat but it was still well above 0C.

Our dish is always connected, so what does that mean? It's not as if I climb the ladder and monkey around with the connector.

Don't start up, power cycle, the router without the dish cable connected. I.e. don't plug the dish cable into the router when the router is connected to the power supply; this causes a surge because the router socket is already powered up and the dish is waiting for juice. It says this in the instructions; if you follow the instructions step by step the router is connected to the power after the router is connected to the dish. Of course you have to look at this like a lawyer or a computer programmer to see that as a clear instruction.

@JustOneGuyHere
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JustOneGuyHere commented Jul 25, 2023 via email

@JustOneGuyHere
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JustOneGuyHere commented Jul 25, 2023 via email

@JustOneGuyHere
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JustOneGuyHere commented Jul 25, 2023 via email

@jbowler
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jbowler commented Jul 26, 2023

I did my best to read through the whole thread. It's frustrating because I have only a limited background, and among other things the acronyms have thrown me at times.

It's a long set of comments and there are more questions than answers (like why don't systems running of 12V batteries work as well as 110V systems?)

My answers are cryptic because I do assume a certain knowledge set but for your purposes there a really only two important things to understand. The first is the electrical power equation:

P = V × I

That matters because the dish requires a certain amount of power with any given configuration and the router (or PoE) has to delivery that power; voltage and current don't matter, only the product counts. The second equation is Ohms law:

V = I × R

This matters because the cable itself takes power; the power to drive the current (I) down the line, and that creates a voltage drop across the cable (V).

Maybe the important thing here is that what I was saying is that my numbers (as reported in the various links) are completely consistent with yours, except, maybe, for the pre-heat behavior. The difference is that you measured current at the router power inlet. That inlet takes a voltage between 110V and 250V whereas all my measurements are the current on the cable which has a power supply of 48V (I used a PoE but it is a 48V PoE like the router IRC.)

So the router has to convert 122V (AC) with 0.3A for the dish to 48V with whatever power the dish requires. The conversion isn't 100% efficient but it will be in the range 80%-95%; assume 90% (arbitrary). This would mean that the router/cable assembly are being supplied with 33W at 48V (DC) which is a current of 0.69A.

That's pretty much identical to what I measured; a 5s average of 0.6 to 0.8A, looks like 0.7A to me!

The pre-heat figure is, however, a bit of a problem; 0.9A less 0.07A for the router means 100W, at 90% efficiency that means the cable assembly is getting 90W and this is the quoted (faceplate) limit of the router. It's still well within the capabilities of the cable but it really is flat out for the system design. It's close to 2A up and down the cable (so the cable is carrying 4A total, still fine so far as I can see). Maybe that's the way StarLink designed it and maybe I didn't manage to switch preheat on properly (or maybe StarLink had it disabled in SW Oregon?)

Another question would be whether the cable problem might be not the cable wiring but the connectors. Note that I'm referring to a standard 50-foot cable connected to a Gen 2 dish.

I think it is the connectors but I don't see how anything the router delivers continuously is going to cause a problem.

Then you don't want me to connect the dish cable into the router when it's connected to the power supply, which I take to mean plugged into the wall.

Yes, because of the way the dish power supply inside the router seems to work. I believe it's a fairly basic passive PoE design (I haven't located a circuit diagram for the router so I can't be sure.) It is a passive design (or the hacks on this gist would not work) and I believe it directly converts the AC power at 60Hz/110V or 50Hz/220V to the 48V. This means that it has to retain sufficient energy between the two points where the AC hits 48V; it has to keep on delivering 48V even though the input voltage is less than 48V.

When you connect the dish to the router with the router already turned on my hypothesis is that this energy floods down the cable to charge the various power supplies inside the dish. This is an "inrush" current and it can be very large. Poorly designed (IMO) 19.2V laptop power supplies had a nasty effect of causing an arc - lightning, accompanied by a bang, thunder - when plugged into a power outlet, this happened for the same reason.

So my further hypothesis is that it's simply a bad idea to plug the dish into a powered on router because that inrush can cause an arc in the connector and, given the connector, easily damage it.

Guess what I did when I was first playing around with my new dish? I had it outside on the lawn and, using the 'phone app, I was testing locations. Because I didn't want to have to go back into the house to plug the router into the outlet I disconnected and reconnected the dish cable connection at the dish. As I reported above the connector between the cable and the dish is now fried; both sides. StarLink sent me a new cable but not a new dish... There's still a significant extra resistance in the connector within the dish mast. I've given up on StarLink but if I hadn't I would have got round to pulling out the dish connector (it's not impossible) and soldering my own CAT5e cable to the wires.

That's just my story of course, but I don't believe any of the reports which imply that the router can deliver way, way, more than 90W. (Of course I have a couple of routers now that I can destruction test, maybe I will one day...)

@JustOneGuyHere
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JustOneGuyHere commented Jul 26, 2023 via email

@jbowler
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jbowler commented Jul 26, 2023

Is there enough resistance in four 24AWG 50-foot wire pairs to care about in the context we're discussing?

No.

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. Not enough to matter I believe. They are also stranded in the StarLink cable; they are each 7 (or 11, I should count them :-) much thinner (31AWG?) wires but the "24AWG" should take all that into account. I normally find "engineeringtoolbox" to be a good resource:

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/awg-wire-gauge-d_731.html

So each wire is around 0.2mm² in diameter and 8 of them are 1.6mm² This is a "cable assembly" so the whole thing has to be considered as a unit. It is equivalent to a 15AWG wire (a single wire). See this table:

https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

The "maximum amps for power distribution" column is based on power loss; the resistance causing excessive loss of power. The value is 4.7A, so the CAT5E is approaching reasonable limits for power loss (and this is, of course, the point of this gist). The "maximum amps for chassis wiring" is the figure for temperature rise. The figure is 28A; this is the point at which the wire (cable in this case) starts to overheat. 28A is in'n'out; the router would be supplying 14A. That's 672W; well within the capability of a 15A US 110V power supply (1650W) but well beyond what the white tombstone can deliver.

For voltage drop it makes more sense to go back to the resistance of 24AWG wires because the fact that they are grouped together doesn't matter and it's just too easy to make mistakes through unnecessary complication. The standard StarLink cable is 75ft long, the longest they actually sell is 150ft long. The powerstream site gives 25.67Ω per 1000ft for 24AWG; that's actually solid and I don't know which number gets priority to determine AWG, resistance would make sense but I don't know. Using that number there are four conductors in and four out for a resistance of 6.4Ω per foot over twice the distance (there and back) times 150ft, 1.93Ω, pretty much 2Ω. I believe my measurements of the resistance of an actual cable were less than that so that seems a possible upper limit.

So that's a 4V loss for 150ft at the max of the StarLink router (2A). Hence the idea to go to a 52V supply for longer, e.g. 300ft; the standard maximum of the ethernet signal. 300ft at 24AWG (the other recommendation is to go to 23AWG CAT6) drops 8V which, IRC, is the lower limit of the PoE standards and StarLink isn't standard in this regard. For the standard cable the drop is 2V; irrelevant.

These figures are consistent with a reasonable assumption that the StarLink engineers checked what they were doing. I can criticize what they did in other ways, but not this one.

@crdiaz324
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Have you guys seen this? Here is a kit that plugs right in, avoiding the need to cut or invert your wires. https://techcharmer.com/products/custom-poe-injector

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