Previously, when using the Starlink up at the Beta Site I have either used a small battery backup brick, or I’ve used an adaptor that lets me use my Milwaukee M18 batteries that power my tools. But, both of those did not really have an option for recharging up there. Once the batteries were drained, it was switch to another battery and take the depleted one back to the house to recharge. What to do?

CostCo was selling this for $200 off, bring my price to $599. (No longer on sale at CostCo, but on sale at Amazon for $100 off but comes with 200w panel instead of 100w). I did a bit of research online and saw that this was the cheapest price out there for this particular device. It came with a 100watt panel to recharge, so there was the option of recharging it up at the Beta Site rather than having to return to town to recharge. Ok, I’ll take chance with it.

The system comes with a 100w panel, but I decided to go ahead and pick up the 200w panel as well. Not cheap, but I wanted every advantage possible. The system has two inputs for panels, or you can buy an additional cable (which I did) that allows you to add panels in serial (daisy chaining) if they are panels of the same wattage. So, putting a 200w and 100w on the same cable is a no-no. I plugged the 200w panel into one input jack, and the 100w into the other input jack…no prob.

Like most electronics these days, the Jackery has an app for your phone. I found this to be an immensely interesting feature. Using the app, I linked the system to my house wireless network. Having done this, I could now, from anywhere with internet, see battery usage, charging rate, hours to charge, hours remaining, turn off the charging outputs to any devices I was charging, etc. This opens up some tremendous possibilities, which I’ll cover shortly.

The battery came completely charged, so I needed to discharge the battery so I could start documenting how well the panels worked to recharge it. Unfortunately, all I had around that needed charging were some flashlights and tool batteries. I got the battery down to about 89% before it was time to head to the Beta Site.

Got up to the Beta Site and the weather was mostly clear with a few clouds here and there. The sun went behind the clouds every so often, but most of the time it was direct late morning sunlight. I Laid out both panels and hooked them up.

As I mentioned, the app for the Jackery needs internet to send the info to your phone. So…I brought out the StarLink and fired it up. What was the draw of the StarLink versus the input from the panels? Lets go to the app:

So thats the data Im being shown when the StarLink is running. Now, at that moment Im not really doing anything internet-heavy except some texting. But even when it was a little more intensive, it was in the 24-34w range in terms of usage. Meanwhile, the panels are throwing 242w into the battery. In short, I’m using the battery up slower than the panels are refilling it. So, as long as the sun is shining, I can internet as much as I want and the battery will get more charged rather than less. But man does not live on internet alone. Lets see what happens when I throw a 12v DC Milwaukee battery charger on there and throw on a battery that needs charging and run the internet at the same time.

Note the times. While using the internet and charging the Milwaukee M18 battery, the system still charged itself up to 100~%. Even when the sun went behind a cloud there was enough input to offset the internet usage.

My anticipated usage for this sort of package is very simple: run the internet and recharge the things that need recharging (camera batts, tool batts, flashlightg batts, etc.) And for that usage, this seems to be a good way to go.

Here’s the really interesting part, though…With no recharging, this thing will run the internet for 30-37 hours. We saw that the internet was using 1/10th of the power that was coming into the system, so, as I see it, that means one hour of charging gives you ten hours internet. So, its entirely possible that with this set up I might be able to leave things runnig 24/7…which means internet live feed may be possible. This interest me greatly. That would open the possibility for a remote rover.

Now that would be something cool!

But back to the job at hand… So I’ve had one weekend of playing with the Jackery. I’ve left it up at the Beta Site in the cargo container. When Im back up there in two weeks I’ll see if there was any measurable self-discharge. Even if there was, I’m convince that a half hour with both panels in place will top that tank right off.

SO, my overall impression so far is good. But, a new broom sweeps clean. Be interesting to see how this holds up over the next year or so. As I said, my very minimalist meeds seem to be met by this setup but those needs won’t be minimal forever. But until such time as I need a more comprehensive, expensive, purpose-built, battery-and-panel-heavy setup I think this might carry me through until then. So, overall: recommend.