For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By Colonel Panic
#1855827
Thanks both - very interesting. If consumption was 190w 24/7 (which I accept it isn't), then that would cost ~£20pcm in electricity alone - not something to be sniffed at. I have a Shelly1PM currently rigged up to monitor 2 solar panels on a barn, but would be interested to see @stevelup 's figures as when and if he has the time.
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1855829
@stevelup

You are giving the masters in your house frozen food? That is not going to end well, I have now warned you.

@TheKentishFledgling

100 Watt seems a not inconsequential amount - if you have no other means of getting decent internet maybe an option, but otherwise.
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By stevelup
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1855837
I don't have a spare Shelly PM unfortunately. I'm interested in this though so I'll re-appropriate one from elsewhere to do the test, but it won't be until the weekend now.

@Flyin'Dutch' the cats get through half a kilo of chicken and heart every day. I can't think of any other logistical solution other than freezing!
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By stevelup
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1855844
The article that was already linked to where he used a Shelly plug has thoroughly tested this. I think it's a waste of time repeating to be honest.

That's less than 30p/day and so falls firmly into my 'life's too short to care about this' category!
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By Morten
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1855858
Not sure how much you could expect it to become more efficient, though. Yes, the electronics can probably improve, but it's the uplink which is the power grabber. Ultimately you will need a certain RF transmit power to make the link and physics sets very clear limits to how sensitive you can expect the spacecraft receivers to be. A larger phased array could provide more directional transmission and lower amplifier power levels, but that trade-off would mean a larger physical antenna. More satellites may give a lower average slant range and easier link budget, but that would probably not have too much of an impact.
Agree, not a huge power draw in the big scheme of things but something worth looking at if you want to use this in a caravan, yacht or any off-grid location.
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By nallen
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1855873
stevelup wrote:the cats get through half a kilo of chicken and heart every day.


I now cannot rid my head of the image of cat ripping heart from carcasse…
By Colonel Panic
#1855918
A couple more random thoughts / questions ...

    Does Starlink give you a static / fixed IP address? If not, how does one cope with VPNs etc? A Crosstalk Solutions video implies Port Forwarding is not possible; I'd have thought that this would be a deal breaker for many techie types?

    I use a BBB Cloud Hosted controller; is this suitable if there is no FTTC / 4G fallback, or would a physical local CloudKey be a better option?

    I read a blog that suggested that if you do not use the Starlink router one misses out on the connection stats etc; if so what would be the best / easiest way to keep track of this type of data? #geekery

TIA
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By stevelup
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1855967
1) No, it's dynamic. And more to the point, it's CGNAT - it is impossible to open external ports. I've solved this by using Andrews & Arnolds L2TP service which give me a public static IP. Not sure how you'd implement this with a USG though - I use a Firebrick as my router. There are various ways of doing VPN behind NAT.

2) Makes no difference at all.

3) Not the case - you just need to set a static route on your router to be able to see the stats page. This page is generated by Dishy, not the router. The router doesn't contribute anything here.
By Colonel Panic
#1855998
stevelup wrote:1) No, it's dynamic. And more to the point, it's CGNAT - it is impossible to open external ports. I've solved this by using Andrews & Arnolds L2TP service which give me a public static IP. Not sure how you'd implement this with a USG though - I use a Firebrick as my router. There are various ways of doing VPN behind NAT.

Wonderful as A&A undoubtedly are, they are not cheap and if I go for Starlink (refundable reservation paid for today with an ETA of mid-to-late 2021) then I wouldn't want to have to pay even more than Starlink want anyway. Can something like Tunnelbear (which I already have a sub with) be configured for this? What key words should I be googling for here? :pale:
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By stevelup
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1856006
The AA product I’m talking about is only a tenner a month. It’ll get you a routable static IP and you won’t need a VPN client on your devices. So apps that you’d normally port forward for will just work. But I don’t know how you’d do it with a USG - it can’t act as an L2TP client.

The only way you’ll get a VPN working is with an external concentrator somewhere.

So basically your home system will tunnel to there and you’d then also connect to there.

In terms of free things that could work, one is LogMeIn Hamachi but it has terrible Mac OS support. They still haven’t updated it for Big Sur let alone what’s coming next. It definitely doesn’t work on M1 macs.

You could look at ZeroTier but I have no first hand experience with it.
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