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Stardate: 20210516.2248
Location: The Lab
Input Device: daimos
Audio: Tracy Chapman
Visual: bright screen glow, ambient multi-colored LEDs
Emotional: Sunday night, meh.
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I have been revisiting an air-gapped, table top, mini Raspberry Pi
lab in my computing lab at home. It was called to my attention when
I read this article, "Creating Your Own Digital Fortess of Solitude."
[1] The author basically writes about cloud computing,
offline/partially online computing, and stuff you can do to not rely
on the cloud so much. Good article and lots of helpful tips!
The table top mini Pi lab is basically a collection of Raspberry Pi
projects that I have assembled and tinkered with over the years.
Included in the bottom of this phost is a link to a picture I took
this evening of the lab devices.[2]
These devices have not been updated since I put them together since
they are not on a public network, but they still function as
intended. I have been thinking of updating them or maybe even
disassembling them and repurpose the parts for other projects. I'm
not sure why, especially if the mini lab is air-gapped and the
projects are complete. Well, I don't think I will make any hard
decisions tonight.
Regarding the picture, what I have here from left to right is the
following:
1. Raspberry Pi 2b NAS, running Open Media Vault, with 3 USB drives
(60GB, 375GB, and 500GB.) The case is repurposed jewelry box
from a thrift store.
2. 4-node Raspberry Pi 2b Hadoop Cluster with wifi router,
5-port ethernet switch, and 5-port USB hub for power. The case
is a repurposed football display case that I mounted on a
swiveling platform. I fabricated a door from acrylic sheet and
added USB fans for cooling. The cluster can run on a 12 volt
battery.
3. Raspberry Pi 2b with 3-watt speakers running RaspPiOS (recently
upgraded.) Used for remote terminal applications and streaming
music from the NAS. The case is also a repurposed jewelry box
that matches the NAS. On top is a DVD burner.
4. Raspberry Pi 3b in a Retroflag NESPi case. The monitor is a 7"
LCD with speakers. All of this attached to a repurposed broken
clock with clock face removed. The back has a door that provides
storage for the power adapters and controllers. The Pi3 runs
RetroPie with a handful of old gaming console emulators.
5. In the middle is an Arduino Esplora game controller on an oriental
rug mouse pad. Underneath is a cutting mat to give perspective
of size.
My main concern right now is the Hadoop Cluster. I have not done
any tinkering with it for over a year and I'm not sure what to do
with it. I'd like to keep it as a cluster, but I could also
separate the functionality of each node. Maybe I could just keep
the microSD cards as is and swap out for different cards when I'm
not cluster computing. Not sure what the state of pi clustering is
these days, especially for Pi 2b. Perhaps I should do some
research.
The nice thing about this lab is that it does not take too much to
power. If I used old PC's, I'm sure it would take quite a bit of
power. Perhaps I should run some power tests and take some readings.
Maybe I should put up something in my Projects section of my gopher
hole regarding pi projects. I do have some old notes. At least it
would help motivate me to organize and document stuff I've worked on.
HTML [1] Building Your Own Digital Fortress of Solitude
IMG [2] Air-gapped, table top Raspberry Pi Lab
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