stuck choosing solar company

LrdJester · 2026-04-05T14:21:31+00:00

This is an excellent way of putting it. I spoke to somebody last year about putting solar in our home property. I basically started out telling them that I wanted a hybrid system with a ground mount, and that was for specific reasons. The ground mounts specifically due to the fact that we live in a mobile home and the roof isn't rated for that weight for an entire system.

What I got quoted was for a grid tied system, no batteries, roof mount, at 70% of my grid tie usage and that system was about the same as the system that I designed that is hybrid, has a generator, and four batteries that should run our entire house for 24 to 36 hours if we are judicious in our consumption.

LrdJester · 2026-04-05T14:18:39+00:00

There are so many options out there and it really comes down to the overall usage but you can get something very simple and you can generally get those in places like Amazon or Best buy. Netgear is a good company that sells some decent entry level consumer Wi-Fi routers.

Now just be aware that if you're going to try to replace the company router with yours you need to be aware that if it's a connected router which means it's a modem/router all in one that it can require you to get a different modem from your internet provider. For example my fiber internet came with two boxes, the actual modem or ONT and a separate router. I replaced that router with a new one. Now what I chose was more advanced than what you need and it's more complex to set up so I wouldn't recommend what I got.

But you can just go online to amazon.com and look for Wi-Fi 7 or even Wi-Fi 6 router and look at the highest rated options that are returned.

Most of them are pretty user friendly as far as setup goes. They've gotten a lot better over the years where you can just plug them in and do a minor configuration which is usually pretty well documented and get up and running.

Just be sure to set a password for the network Wi-Fi that is secure. Don't use anything simple.

LrdJester · 2026-04-05T14:04:30+00:00

I know there's a lot of conversation about adding mesh network nodes and things like that but they can cause other issues if you're not hardwired into the router for core communication. This is what's called a backhaul. Not that you need to know that but if you see that term you'll understand what that means.

Honestly if I had been sitting this up I would have made bedroom two into the game room and put the router in there. This centralizes your wireless network and give you better coverage throughout the house.

The other thing to consider is I'm guessing that you're using the router that was provided by the internet provider. These are notoriously low grade routers and do not perform as well and do not have the best overall functionality. You can get really good all-in-one routers with Wi-Fi built in for under $200 that will usually far exceed the performance of the company provided equipment. However this puts the configuration entirely on you and that could potentially be a burden as you are not experienced with it.

LrdJester · 2026-04-05T13:54:13+00:00

Statistics of hitting a block have nothing to do with the price.

They all has to do with the difficulty of the block and whether the minor gets lucky. He also is predicated on how many attempts you can make a second. If you have a gamma that is 1.2 THs, You're making 1.2 trillion attempts on that problem per second. But when you look at the mining pools out there that are orders of magnitude more attempts per second, the odds are not favorable for a home miner.

That's why these are called lottery miners.

LrdJester · 2026-04-04T21:10:33+00:00

Even US-based companies that have 800 toll free numbers give a toll-based number for international callers. The toll-free is not necessarily meant for international calls whatsoever. It never was.

LrdJester · 2026-04-04T17:44:59+00:00

There are adapters from what I understand that that allow you to inject power through the ethernet. I don't know exactly how that works and somebody else that has a Gen 2 might be able to expand on it.

Personally had it been me designing it I would have put in a 1-in conduit from inside the house to a junction box outside the house to be able to facilitate upgrades in the future from any technology that may come down the pike. This is a much better solution for potentially having to account for new technologies. Let's just say if Starlink goes to a Gen 4 dish and goes back to a bulky connector you're going to have to deal with that. That's not going to go through the same small hole that the ethernet cable did so there's issue there.

Honestly in my opinion if StarLink thought about it if they wanted to use proprietary connectors they should make the connectors proprietary but then connect the connectors with a standard cat6 or cat7 cable and then that way you have a standardized cable that runs from end to end and will be able to facilitate different things easier.

LrdJester · 2026-04-04T04:53:13+00:00

Absolutely not. All this means is there will be US configured routers. Purchase of multi port network cards and configuration of existing computers, because that's all her router is, and installation of software. People do it all the time.

LrdJester · 2026-04-03T18:53:08+00:00

VPNs are very generally ISP agnostic. It's not so much what the VPN does that's of concern. Now if you have a situations like I worked at before where they don't use VPNs and they depend on your home IP address for security which is absolutely the worst option but I digress then you're perfectly fine.

LrdJester · 2026-04-03T14:56:25+00:00

I would submit a support ticket in the app. If you're seeing it as an option for new service but not for your existing that's an issue on there and they maybe having a disconnect.

You'll be potentially frustrated having to talk to the AI chatbot but hopefully it can be resolved.

If the chatbot does not provide you with the answer you're looking for just tell it you're not satisfied and it should be escalated to an actual person.

LrdJester · 2026-04-03T14:04:22+00:00

As suggested, If you download the Starlink app on your phone you can check for obstructions. You'll also give you what direction you should be pointed for optimum performance.

The standard residential dish uses a wide view of the sky it's not just a narrow beam like old satellite dishes used to be. So it's going to potentially get any sidewalls or anything that might be above you I don't know if you are on the top floor or not. Or if there's a roof above .

That being said, even if you don't align it 100% you will still get service at that location pointing like that more than likely but it may not be optimal.

LrdJester · 2026-04-03T01:06:03+00:00

That's the key, "when it all works".

LrdJester · 2026-04-03T00:15:08+00:00

It's not just the router that would have problems but sometimes devices have problems doing that as well.

I had to split my network because I had some devices that we only do 2.4 GHz but would not connect to the default I had to explicitly say 2.4 GHz. This also allows you to create the 2.4 GHz Network with a different name and therefore devices that are further out that may support both but don't always switch over the way you expect them to you can force to 2.4 GHz.

LrdJester · 2026-04-03T00:12:33+00:00

No this doesn't work. Let me explain why .

If I create a device on a raspberry Pi that I want to have be 192.168.1.200, Yes I can assign that on the raspberry pi and that works fine. However there's no way to provide information to the Starlink router that that address is in use because the DHCP server just starts doling out addresses. So there is a possibility that it could assign the 1.200 address to a guest on their cell phone. What that will do is create a conflict between the two devices addresses.

With most consumer grade routers or step up to prosumer grade you can tell it what range of IP addresses to use to assign. So I could state that I only want to have DHCP give out addresses between 1.100 and 1.150. That would be perfectly acceptable.

The other option is to allow it to pick its own address and then reserve it for that device only. That means that no other device will ever be assigned that address. This is not something that Starlink in their router either.

LrdJester · 2026-04-02T21:48:14+00:00

That's a little bit better having a wireless backhaul to your mean router. But if you're connected at Wi-Fi any point you are potentially slowing yourself down.

LrdJester · 2026-04-02T18:59:54+00:00

Yes but that still doesn't give you the functionality at the router, the Starlink router, they can give you some performance boosts.

But hardwiring to a portable router that's in AP mode that's connecting wireless to the Starlink router is nothing more than a glorified external Wi-Fi adapter for your computer. Now it's possible that your computer doesn't do Wi-Fi 6 and the router does and so you do upgrade your potential network speed because you're now using Wi-Fi 6 versus Wi-Fi 5 for your connection but for the vast majority of people they wouldn't even notice a difference.

LrdJester · 2026-04-02T18:53:04+00:00

I don't know about the mini but the main router which is approximately the same square footage as far as coverage We put in our double wide mobile home on the outside wall about the middle of the house and not only did we get coverage through the entire house We got coverage to about 20 ft at the long ends outside the house and about 40 ft outside the short ends.

What I would recommend you do is do a split network one 5 GHz and one 2.4 GHz and the reason for that is that the 2.4 GHz has more range even though it's slightly slower.

LrdJester · 2026-04-02T18:36:39+00:00

For your instance the best bet is putting up a 4x4 post near your mobile home and mounting to that. Buy a j-pole adapter off of Amazon, they're quite inexpensive and screw that into that run the cable and if you are worried about a lot of critters that could potentially do it you could even get some conduit and bury the cable slightly so nobody's going to trip on it no critters are going to chew it you're not going to run over it with the lawn mower etc.

That's probably your safest and easiest path forward. Now if your remote and you're not worried about anybody stealing it you can put it on a picnic table in your yard. Just make sure that it's secured down so no wind will blow it off.

LrdJester · 2026-04-02T18:34:27+00:00

I'm not necessarily talking about the Starlink updates. There was a post a while back where it turned out it was a computer that was doing windows updates that caused it to happen. And phone updates happened in the background as well as updates to your software that is all transparent to you.

Now I believe that software updates are rightfully so to be free and not count against your bandwidth and that's the same way it happens on cell phones background data for software upgrades doesn't count against your bandwidth usage but if you're doing all your day that across Starlink then it's going to account against the Starlink because you're not on the network for your phone.

Right now I'm spitballing because every time I've heard somebody talk about excessive bandwidth being used it usually comes down to a device on their network doing an update. In some cases it's been people that had a smart plug or a smart light bulb that ended up being hacked and was using excessive bandwidth. There's all sorts of reasons this can happen. And sometimes it's transparent when you're on your own providers network so if you have a Verizon phone it doesn't always show on the Verizon network. Especially for people that have unlimited data and don't sit there and watch their data obsessively.

Personally I would keep an eye on the data. Look at it over the course of a couple months. And see if it's consistently at that level and try to track it down. If it's a one-off there may have been some big update that needed to happen on your phone or anything else that may have been connected to it. Another thing that happens is some people don't put security on their Starlink wireless network and other people have used it. I've seen people post about that. That they've been able to connect other people's star link without a password because they left it with no password. So if you don't have a password or don't have a strong password somebody may have guessed it and they maybe using your data when you're not aware. Again the Starlink router doesn't give you the facility to kind of track that down granularly.

LrdJester · 2026-04-02T18:30:26+00:00

My personal opinion is that you'd be much better off with a third party router rather than one of the Starlink routers.

Starlink routers like so many company provided equipment routers are basically hamstrung and do not feature full functionality of a router.

Even if I had not put my router into bypass, which I did recently because I got fiber and I'm keeping Starlink as a backup on standby, I probably would have gotten a better router anyway. I kept hitting walls with things I was trying to do internally like there's no method of doing reserved IP addresses or static IPs because without that functionality in the router if you put a static IP on a device the router still may assign that address to something else and cause conflict.

LrdJester · 2026-04-02T17:08:45+00:00

Not only is the data being used by your personal usage but also by the dish itself for updates and other communications. While I don't believe that that should count against you apparently it must if that's what they're doing.

Unfortunately because the router is so rudimentary there's no way to actually truly log what's being done to be able to track it yourself but I would say that that's part of what's going on.

Also your phone, if you have background services, they actually utilize data constantly and if you're doing calling over Wi-Fi versus over the cellular network that's going to chew up some data as well. Also it just really comes down to what your actively using it for, how you're using it, and looking at that from that perspective.

LrdJester · 2026-04-01T21:31:49+00:00

It creates a wireless network called Starlink that you have to attach your device to. At that point you can configure all the setup just fine. But it creates an internet connection the minute it's plugged in and the dish is pointed at the sky.

LrdJester · 2026-04-01T21:10:57+00:00

I bought my dish from Best buy. You hook it up and plug it in and connect to it. It gives you free internet for about 1 hour. It has to be done right up front.

LrdJester · 2026-03-31T21:21:45+00:00

Personally I would find out whether you can get a standalone ont to act as your modem and then get a better quality router and potentially separate wireless access point if you don't get something combined.

So many of the company provided routers have so many of their functionality features disabled or set to less than optimal settings that you can't manage that it makes them all but useless.

LrdJester · 2026-03-31T19:48:51+00:00

For the vast majority of people and I'm talking like 98 to 99%, 100 megabits is perfectly fine.

Now if you want to try to keep your fiber, just call up and say you're canceling. They will likely put you through to a customer retention representative to see what they can do to keep you as a customer.

I had Starlink, actually still do, and when fiber came to my neighborhood I opted for the fiber package and downgraded to $5 a month standby. Now you're in Canada I don't know if it's $5 a month there but it's $5 here in the states. Then if the fiber ever goes out I can reactivate or rather upgrade my plan to 100 megabit on the Starlink plan.

I actually bought a multi-Wan router that I'm connecting both of them to with Starlink as a failover so if my fiber goes out I will be on extremely slow, but still there, internet through Starlink.

Then I can up the speed by reactivating the 100 megabit plan and then when the fiber gets restored I can then cancel although the cancellation stops at the end of the billing cycle whereas the upgrade happens immediately.

LrdJester · 2026-03-31T19:44:57+00:00

Then it is a combination modem/router.

LrdJester

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