"Emergency IT" Cyberdeck Packs SDR, Wikipedia, 48-Hour Batteries, and Dual Redundant Raspberry Pis
Designed for disaster recovery, there's plenty packed into this compact case — including a pair of battery packs for a 48 hour runtime.
Pseudonymous maker "modding_me_softly," hereafter known as Modding, has put together an "emergency IT" cyberdeck build — featuring dual swappable Raspberry Pi single-board computers to continue running in the event of the complete failure of one.
"I specced it to interface with things that I know. I'm sure someone else would have a serial interface in there, etc. But these are the technologies that I am good with," Modding explains of the project, which is housed in a Pelican 1400 storage case. "It's also built to be as modular as possible. No 3D printed parts, covers or plexiglass. It would have looked great but in an emergency, those would only get in the way."
The hardware, which includes a hot Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 8GB single-board computer with a second in cold storage for quick recovery in the event of a failure, is mounted with Velcro to keep with the quick-change theme. There's a 7" touchscreen display in the lid, a pair of USB batteries for power, card reader, GPS receiver, an Arduino Mega microcontroller, a USB 3 hub, 10m of Ethernet cable, a compact foldable keyboard and mouse, a USB Wi-Fi dongle with packet injection support, and a HackRF One software-defined radio.
On the software side, apart from the operating system and all required drivers for the accessories, there are Japanese and English copies of Wikipedia with imagery for offline access, a copy of StackOverflow, a range of dual-language first aid videos, survivalist videos on shelter building, knot tying — and a few hours' of children's TV, just in case.
"If wall power is available," Modding notes of the deck's off-grid capabilities, "it can charge full in two hours and then run for 48 hours straight. Fallback to solar (100W capacity at home, 30W each in car and emergency kit) and car DC power. To recharge, charge the Anker power banks with whatever is available. They can take surprisingly unstable and dirty power."
More details are available in the project's Reddit thread.