We drove our truck about five hours from our home base to Oregon Motorcoach Center in Eugene to pick up our coach after its annual service, repairs, and improvements, then just 47 miles, about an hour of driving, from OMC to Blue Ox RV Park in Albany, Oregon.
We have a Starlink Mini dish mounted on the roof of our truck, for use when we are driving in areas with little or no cell service, which can be quite nice. It was plugged into a 12V outlet by the back seat. But a minor inconvenience with it was that this outlet loses power when the truck is turned off, so we lose the internet connection, and it takes a minute to re-establish after starting the truck again.
So now we can control whether or not to start the Starlink connection by turning on the DC output of the battery, and it can continue as long as we like. Plus the power station may be useful for other uses when out and about.
Unboxing:
Front of the power station; it has an input for DC or solar panel, three 12V DC outputs, two USB-C, two USB-A, and two AC outputs:
AC input on the side:
Stats:
Initially charging the battery via AC:
In the back seat of our truck, with 111W input from the truck (while idling) and 26W output to the Starlink Mini dish:
It has an app, which is more convenient to adjust settings:
This blog is a bit behind real-time; we are actually in Canada at present, on our way to Alaska. Just 46 miles into the Alcan after Dawson Creek, leaving a fuel stop in Fort St John, the front frame of our truck failed, and the tow base plate broke off. Fortunately the truck was stopped at an intersection when it failed; it could have been much worse if it failed in motion. Luckily we caught it within about a minute of it happening. Yes, we have a rear-view camera which shows the truck, but we don’t stare at it all the time, when merging onto a highway and navigating traffic (and it shows the side view when indicating).
After sleeping on it, we decided to head home. We considered driving the truck separately, or storing it in Fort St John and renting a car in Alaska, but either would impact the enjoyment of our trip. We decided we’d rather come back again in a year or two and do it right. (We’re thinking about downsizing to a van or B+ anyway, which might work better.)
I’ve zip-tied the loose wires etc, and we’ll drive separately home over the next few days. We aren’t entirely missing out on Alaska this year: we also have an Alaska cruise in September, so that helps us feel this was the right choice for us. We’ll be back to see the rest of Alaska in the next year or two, and would like to explore more of Canada too.
Here’s a video from someone who saw us dragging the bumper (and then flagged us down). The video has gone viral, with millons of views in various Facebook groups, TikTok, etc. Reading the comments provides an interesting sample of humanity; some sympathetic people, but a lot more trolls showing a lack of empathy for a significant event, or making irrelevant comments or incorrect assumptions (it’s not a Jeep, we didn’t drag it lots of miles, we’re not Boomers or rich, etc etc). Disappointing, but not surprising.
