Transcript
Introduction
Good afternoon, and welcome to another Power Monitors webinar. We’re going to be talking about using PMI recorders and the Starlink system.
A lot of this networking information applies to really any networking you need to do with your power monitoring equipment. But we are specifically going to talk about Starlink today because it’s come up, a number of you have been curious. There are a lot of places out there where you have power generation and not a lot of cell towers nearby.
What Is Starlink?
If you’re not familiar, this is a series of low-earth orbit satellites put up by Starlink, kinda sub-company SpaceX launches these low-earth orbit satellites to provide high bandwidth, low latency alternative to cell connections. Obviously, you’re not going to get the kind of speeds you would over a hardwired connection, and you’re not going to get the throughput you’d get from a hardwired connection.
We actually have one of these here on the building, in the event that the local construction crews decide to send out the fiber-seeking backhoes and sever our internet connection here at the building. So we do have one as a backup that we’ve used. It’s been pretty successful.
PMI Networked Recorders
These are a series of our networked recorders. So you’ve got the Revolution, the Seeker, the Tensor, the Seeker+, and the Bolt, all of which can be networked a couple different ways we’ll touch on here in a moment.
Key Starlink Networking Differences
There’s two big things to know about networking through Starlink that you might not know from normal networking setups. You’re used to just hooking up a traditional router. There are some things that Starlink does that are atypical.
One of these is that they use a carrier-grade NAT, so you don’t have a guaranteed public IP for your Starlink equipment. That will change just kinda as the system needs it to, so you’re not gonna be able to use things like port forwarding. If you’re used to saying, “Hey, we’re gonna send traffic to this port, and we’ll forward it through to the Revolution,” you can’t really do that with a Starlink device.
Similarly, the other big confusion is the local LAN address enforcement. If you try to set a static address for your device, say, “Okay, I’m gonna give my device one nine two one six eight dot five dot nine,” the Starlink box will absolutely freak out and block all connection from it. I know this because the first time I set it up, I tried to do that. I tried to give it an assigned lease, which I also couldn’t do through the Starlink system.
So if you’re gonna hook something up directly downstream of the Starlink box, it needs to be allowed to use DHCP and let the Starlink box give you a local LAN IP.
VPN Connections and PQ Canvass
If you’re used to using our Revolutions with a public cell address or a static cell IP, this is going to seem odd to you. You can’t just punch in the IP and say, “Hey, connect,” and talk to it over that cell network.
In order to overcome some of this, our devices, many of them, have the ability to make a VPN connection back to the PQ Canvass cloud service to stream data through an encrypted VPN out to PQ Canvass and to receive the commands that you send from PQ Canvass. If you’re familiar with using PQ Canvass at all, setting thresholds and trigger out alerts, and initializing new recordings without ever touching the device, simply from the PQ Canvass web interface, that requires bidirectional communication.
You can stream data to PQ Canvass without a VPN. Just hook it up to the Starlink and fire away the destination address for PQ Canvass. That’s fine. That’ll work for streaming up recordings, sending up that one-second RMS data. That all works very smoothly. But if you want that bidirectional communication, you are going to be needing, when you use Starlink, to use a VPN connection.
The Seeker, the Seeker+, the Tensor, and the Bolt can all make these VPN connections. The Tensor makes this connection through Wi-Fi. There are no Ethernet ports on the Tensor. The Bolt would be joining the Starlink’s Wi-Fi. The Seeker+ and the Seeker are both capable of making Ethernet connections or Wi-Fi connections.
There’s an adapter you can plug in to the Seeker, and there’s a splitter on the current input end of a Seeker+, which allow you to connect both your CTs and a USB-C. So for the Seeker+, you don’t need any kind of fancy adapter. You just need a generic USB-C to Ethernet dongle to hook up onto the end of it.
The Revolution and the Boomerang
We need to talk about the Revolution. The Revolution and the Ethernet Boomerang—which is not mentioned here because the Ethernet Boomerang only does one-second RMS data, it doesn’t stream a whole lot of heavy recordings, and the vast majority of Boomerangs out in the field are cell Boomerangs. There are some Ethernet Boomerangs, but they’re usually set up in SCADA systems with DNP3 and not networked and sending data up to Canvas.
So be advised that whatever I’m saying right now about the networking for the Revolution also applies to the Boomerang if you happen to have one that you want to send data to PQ Canvass.
The Revolution and the Boomerang are not capable of making VPN connections. So this means if you are hooked up behind a Starlink device for the networking, you are not going to be able to send that bidirectional communication. You are still able to stream that one-second RMS data up, but there is not a simple way for us to get the bidirectional communication working to a Revolution.
You would need another networking device behind the Starlink that can make that sort of VPN connection or point-to-point connection in order to make that work. We’ve recommended a couple, your Cradlepoints, your Sierra Wireless, et cetera, to tie back to your corporate network and relay it that way, because the Starlink’s not going to allow you to port forward. It’s not gonna allow you to set addresses to pass that data through.
This also means that the PQ Canvass feature where you can trigger a recording download from a cell Revolution is also not going to work here because you would need a dedicated address to hit, and you don’t have one if you’re behind a Starlink.
Local Network Setup
If you try to code a static IP, the Starlink will absolutely reject all that and silently drop all device traffic, and you’ll spend an afternoon being very annoyed like I did. So don’t do that.
Now, if you really do need to assign a static local IP or set a lease in the local LAN served by the Starlink, you would wanna put a device downstream of the Starlink, your own router device, so that you could have leases off of that network, off the LAN side of that router device, have the LAN side headed out towards the Starlink.
Configuring Ethernet on the Seeker and Seeker+
The Seeker+, you can use the USB splitter that they have for the CTs so that you can hook up both the CTs and a USB-C to Ethernet adapter. There’s one caveat on this that needs to be set. This shows you the three menus to walk through, going from Communications over to Network, setting up Use DHCP.
Ethernet for the Seeker+ is a factory option, so remember to ask your sales rep to include that with your Seeker+ if you are purchasing one. There’s a simple little checkbox, “Hey, use DHCP.” And if you uncheck it, you can fill in these boxes for the static IP, net mask, and gateway. But remember, if you wanna put it connected directly to a Starlink, don’t set a static IP. You need to let it use DHCP, otherwise it will not allow that traffic through. It’ll just drop it all.
The Seeker has an actual adapter. It’s the same connection port as the USB connection. Right there in the middle is the communications port which handles both USB communication and Ethernet communications. We have an adapter that you need to use for the Seeker. The Seeker+, you just need the splitter, and then it’s any normal USB-C to Ethernet dongle you could find.
Wi-Fi Considerations
If you’re hooking up a Bolt or a Tensor or the Seeker or Seeker+ to the Wi-Fi network broadcast by a Starlink, just be advised that if you try to join it and then you seal it in a metal box, you will significantly decrease the amount of Wi-Fi signal that you’re getting inside the metal box. So position your devices accordingly.
Most of these devices have an internal Wi-Fi antenna. You’re all familiar with the cell connection, the SMA connectors for the cell antenna where you can run that cell antenna outside whatever box you need with a magnetic mount. The Wi-Fi antennas are internal, not external, so there’s not an option to run a Wi-Fi antenna outside of the box and get better signal that way. Just something to be aware of if you’re going to use the Wi-Fi connection, and that applies whether it’s Starlink Wi-Fi or any Wi-Fi. Physics does not care what brand of Wi-Fi network you’re using.
Satellite Connection Reliability and Data Buffering
Since this is satellite networking, there can be brief interruptions due to atmospheric conditions, and the connections are usually pretty robust. But as the satellites are moving around and juggling traffic, you can have the occasional dip.
The PMI recorders capable of streaming the recordings to PQ Canvass—that’s your Seeker+, your Bolt, Seeker, Tensor, and the Guardian—store the recordings on disk, so they have a significant amount of buffer time of what they’re going to stream up to PQ Canvass. Just because your connection dips for a little bit, the tunnel will restore, and it will flush all that buffered data. The Boomerang and the Revolution only stream that one-second RMS data. They can buffer a tiny bit, but they don’t have the memory on board that the more advanced recording devices have.
Closing Remarks
Again, these recommendations apply to not just Starlink networking. Starlink has come up a few times recently. Utilities have asked, “Hey, if we put a Starlink unit out in this middle-of-nowhere field where we have some windmills, what do we need to know different from hooking it up at the office or in a residential neighborhood or a busy area where you have lots of cell signal?”
If you come up with questions after this, go ahead and email us at support@powermonitors.com. We’ll be happy to answer any questions you have about networking the product. Thank you, and have a good evening.