MOTORHOME MODIFICATION- Starlink DC to DC Power Source

As most of you regular blog readers know, we have upgraded to Starlink for when we travel. But it is also our main source of internet for at home. So that means we have to take the dish back and forth between the house and the motorhome. 

Our dish is not permanently mounted on the roof of our motorhome, like some people do.

Starlink recently made some changes to its methods of receiving signal on the Generation 3 dish. We were always the "Roam" plan so we can use it anywhere we go. But the big change is that now our Generation 3 dish is capable of receiving signals while IN MOTION!!!

What does this mean for us? It means while going through the long sections of Canada and Alaska or remote areas here in the lower 48, we can still have internet access while driving down the road. This means things like Google maps will work, or we can look ahead for information on something coming up, or we can look ahead for vacant campsites on reservation maps. It means I can work on you tube videos and blogs while travelling.  And best of all, it means we can make VOIP calls over the internet with Wi-Fi calling enabled on our cell phones. 

Game changer!

So now we need to find a good spot to put our dish when we are moving down the road. Fortunately, some folks on our Winnebago list have already tested this out. By placing the dish flat facing upwards in the skylight, it is able to very effectively maintain a signal while driving down the road. 

Of course, when parked somewhere in the shade with trees overhead, that can be an issue. So we need to be able to put it up there but only in a temporary situation that we can remove it and set it out within the campsite when we are stopped. Also so we can remove it bring it back into the house when we are home.

We tried it out on our last camping trip by just setting it in the skylight and pulling the two sliders for the screen or shade covers towards the middle a little bit just to hold it there. Yep, it works!

In this photo above we just have it set into place and we have the modem just setting on the ledge to the left of the bunk. The cord is just dangling down and looped over one of the bunk lights. None of this is suitable for when we are driving down the road of course. So we have to make a few changes...

The first change is holding it up into place in the skylight firmly. We bought four RV stretcher tension bars that are normally used for holding items in the refrigerator or the cabinets. We bought the correct size for 2 to go crossways and 2 to go lengthways up in the skylight. So it will be double secured in both directions. We also bought long thin strips of felted pads that are used for underneath furniture on hardwood flooring. We are going to put the strips of felt pads on inner surface of the tension bars so it won't rattle against the plastic of the Starlink dish housing. The Starlink dish itself is very light, under 5 pounds. 

Next problem to overcome is the power. The Starlink runs on household current AC 120 volt. You know, regular three-prong plug-in household current. 

But we know that the power block itself is technically DC that can run off 12 volt. It's just the Starlink comes with a box that automatically converts it from DC over to AC for most people's needs.

But if we are driving down the road, we're not hooked up to household current AC. Nor is our factory installed inverter on our motorhome pure sine wave to operate the system either. 

So what we really need is either do an expensive pure sine wave inverter upgrade, or create a workaround to hook it up directly to 12 volts. You know, DC to DC. Why convert it from DC over to AC and back to DC again???

There are a few people on Amazon or wherever that sell some homemade DC power setups for Starlink. They are kind of scabbed together, look ugly and I'm not so sure of their reliability. 

Just last month Starlink has actually come out with a DC to DC power source! They first made one available for their new little mini star link (which is only limited to a 50 GB plan) but now they came out with a DC power source for the Generation 3 dish!  It's so people can do exactly what we are doing --- running Starlink as they drive down the road.

We bit the bullet and ordered one, a little costly at $110. But still cheaper than a pure sine wave inverter upgrade on our entire motorhome. 

(Incidentally, we would not want to run an inverter all of the time in our motorhome because there are always phantom draws and it draws power itself. We rarely use our inverter on the motorhome, especially when boondocking) 

The new DC to DC power block came from Starlink in a matter of a week. Now we just had to hook it up! It comes with XT60 connectors which are commonly used on remote control cars and planes and devices. The cord is heavy duty 12 AWG, 12 gauge. You can't just plug this thing into a cigarette lighter. It's going to pop the fuses and it's a much larger draw of higher amperage. The cord that comes with the DC to DC power source is an XT60 connector on both ends. They expect you to figure out how to get power through it from whatever source you have.

We did a little research, as we usually do. We figured out what type of wiring we need and what connectors we wanted, but now we had to figure out where to put them so we don't just have cords hanging and dangling around the cab area of the motorhome. 

So step one, before we ordered anything, was to go to the motorhome and figure out where we could run these cords from up by the skylight in the ceiling over the bunk, and how to get the cords down to the coach batteries in a compartment underneath our stairs.

By removing a long section of plastic trim, we were very happy to discover a hollow wall leading from the edge of the bunk all the way down to the floor. Inside that chamber is an opening leading to the battery area that had been closed off with spray foam insulation around some other wires. Happily, Steve was able to drill through the insulation and get access to the lower compartment. So he didn't even have to drill through any structure other than spray foam!!!

So now that we had the routing of the wires solved, now we had to figure out the wires and connectors themselves. What did we need? Of course, all 12 AWG thickness. 

First of all, we wanted an mountable outlet to plug that XT60 cord into. We found one with a 12-gauge lead in wire, along with ordering an on/off toggle switch to be next in the chain. The switch would enable us to turn it on and off instead of just unplugging the wire. That way we can turn off the dish when not in use, especially when boondocking! The Starlink draws about 60 watts in normal use and closer to 90 or 100 watts while it's first tracking around and locating the satellites. 

We also found 12 gauge wires for leading down to the battery box as well as a fused wire before hooking it to the positive power source and the ground source.

We made a little preliminary video here of how we are hooking up these wires and just test fitting them all together. Steve added the heavy ring terminals to the end of the wires. This will connect to a big block fuse by our batteries for the positive feed and the other to a ground post. We will later do a complete video of the entire installation once we get out in the motorhome itself. Here is the start of the video in temporary unedited format:

I hope that explained what we are trying to do.

We will get more done when it warms up after this cold snap. 

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While we were out in the motorhome, we did one other little upgrade. Someone on our Winnebago list showed that they cut these carpet tiles to the exact size of the stairs and stuck them down with double stick carpet tape. It's a much nicer surface than the ridged metal that was there that caught all of the gravel and dirt and was really tough to clean out even with a whisk broom or vacuum cleaner. These carpet tiles are easily removed if they get too dirty and put some new ones down with more double stick carpet tape. I think they look nice and neat and should be an improvement. 

Yesterday was a fun day for us. We got to go pick up these two shaggy little grubby grand puppies and bring them to the groomer. Our kids work during the day and don't get back into town until after 5:00 p.m. So getting sassy little puppies to the groomer doesn't happen unless they use up vacation time. 

Grandma and Grandpa to the rescue! 

It was almost unrecognizable to pick up little Biscuit and Ewok after their grooming session! Now they have to get put in their little jackets every time they go in and out for potty because it's very cold out. They don't have any fluffiness left to keep them warm. They look bare naked...

So that's about it for yesterday. Today has dawned very cold and icy with wind chills below zero. But the sun is out. 

It's going to be a very big exciting day for us. Our Christmas present to the grandkids is to take everybody out to a Mexican meal at their favorite restaurant here in town. After that, we all go to the bowling alley. We reserve two lanes all afternoon, and we let them bowl as long as they want. Complete with drinks and snacks at the bowling alley, all the little cousins can have a blast. The grown-ups take one alley, and the kids take the other. 

We are looking forward to a day of fun fun fun.