The problem is with the little Starlink ethernet adapter. Does the hack bypass of and just drop you to an RJ45? The only thing I’d worry is if the dish side ethernet uses the same chipset, which it may from a manufacturing standpoint.
Based on recent tear down videos/articles the adapter is merely a pass through device with provisions for power injection. There are no active components.
I have been working with Starlink on this and it appears to be an issue with the way the two devices negotiate the link when set to “Auto” or “1gb”
So far the work around for this issue is to set the link speed on the PepWave to “100M” or use an intermediate bridging device like a switch. Granted 100M will slow your download speed a bit when using starlink.
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Do we know a list of pepwave / peplink devices that would be impacted here ?
Agreed the best solution might be a peplink firmware to allow hard setting of Ethernet speed on wan to all speeds. I see some here trying 100, does transit not have option to 1g full ?
Also noted there 3 versions of SL dish units out but more commonly known are the gen1 aka round (had 2 hardware versions) and gen 2 rectangular. I’m betting most here are talking gen2 since gen1 did not need Ethernet adapter.
We have been using Starlink (Gen1 & Gen2 via ethernet) with Peplink routers for over 12 months without connectivity / speed issues.
The routers we have been using are as follows:
- Balance One Core - 6 Year Old model running FW8.2.1
- UBR LTE - running FW8.2.1
- HD4 MBX - running FW8.2.1
- Balance 310 5G - running FW8.2.1
- Balance 20 & 20x - Running FW8.2.1
We have many Transit Duo’s old and new and of various CAT’s but have never had the need to use Starlink with them but we will be testing this weekend just to see if we see the same issues as outlined in this thread.
Regards,
Ozzie
SimpliWIFi
https://simpliwifi.agency
Update with support.
We haven’t seen the same type of problem reported by other customers (packet loss or uplink 80 kbps) using Transit Duo here. In our case it was problem of downlink mainly, around 20 Mbps without packet loss.
8.2.1s075 firmware improved downlink in our lab but it didn’t help for customers, who used Transits, neither for you.
Our SWE team does not have much ideas from software side. We cannot do experiments on customer equipment because we need the physical access to the board to connect console cable in a case we brick the unit.
After consulting with hardware and software engineers, it looks that this compatibility issue cannot be solved by software from our side. We should look for the alternative methods, which we know already like the switch, 100 Mbps port speed, other port + Virtual WAN or maybe even cut the cable?
So it seems they have been unable to come up with a solution/fix on the software side of things. It doesn’t appear to affect all Pepwave devices, just ones like me (Transit Pro E) with the chipset they are using on the WAN port. As using the virtual WAN on the LAN side of things has been working perfectly fine for me. You can then convert the WAN port into a LAN port so you are not loosing ports.
As a Network Engineer, I was not satisfied with this so I went with the “Starlink Router Delete Mod” by modifying my Starlink cable from the Dishy. We live in our 5th wheel full-time and wanted to be able to run it off 12v anyways so I did not need an inverter. There are a lot of tutorials online and the infamous diagram for switching the pairs when terminating the shielded CAT5e cable end from Dishy.
In the end, I now have:
Dishy->Cable cut->PoE Injector (powered by a 12v to 48v up converter power supply by MeanWell)->Pepwave Transit Pro E WAN port
I used the PoE injector DishyPowa: https://dishypowa.com/
Power Supply: DDR-120A-48 MEAN WELL USA Inc. | Power Supplies - External/Internal (Off-Board) | DigiKey
Using DishyPowa you can keep the standard T-568B pinout when terminating and no need for custom cable end on the router side of the PoE injector. It’s been working rock-solid for me. Actually, using it this way straight from the Dishy, it works on the WAN port. So the network chip Starlink is using on their router side (with adapter) seems to be the problem. But there are workarounds: 1) Use a switch in between, or contact PepWave and activate the Virtual WAN feature and plug Starlink into a LAN port.
I used the Starlink Ethernet adapter and cut it so I did not have to destroy the OEM cable from dishy until a replacement came in (or there were issues and I can easily go back to the Starlink Router).
Cutting the ethernet adapter cable. Notice how there are 2 sets of wires. The thin ones are for the ethernet jack on the adapter and the thicker ones are from Dishy. I just cut off the thin ones as it’s for the Starlink router. Ethernet jack on adapter is useless anyways doing this hack.
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I bought a Max Transit in 2021 and just received our Starlink this week. Plugged it into the router with the SL network adapter, no switch in between and no other extra components. It seems I am getting regular speeds and do not have any excessive packet loss. I have not run any heavy tests yet. Is there a way to definitely tell whether this problem exists or not? Or would I know it by now?
Regards,
Maciek