The only tricky bit is forcing the Pi's USB port into host mode by default. I thought the hub was defective but it worked when I put an OTG adapter into the micro USB port. The default auto detect behavior doesn't work with this since it doesn't connect to the OTG pin.
I had to edit /boot/firmware/config.txt and add under the [all] section:
[all]
dtoverlay=dwc2,dr_mode=host
Check this out: https://hackaday.com/2026/07/20/old-ssds-find-new-life-as-game-cartridges/
Just saw it on Hack a Day and remembered this post. It's using old SSDs instead of SD cards but is basically what you're describing.
And they're using auto launch scripts like I mentioned in my first comment and a whitelist to address security.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01K9IVUYM
I bought that earlier this year. Works great. Have two RTL-SDRs hooked into it along with a Meshtastic node. It mounts under the Pi Zero so you still have your headers available for other stuff.
Every time I play Skyrim:
"You are carrying too much to be able to run"
Inventory:
Me: But I might need those later.
Lol, no. And if you were expecting something clever like a goat, sorry to disappoint lol. Just a basic battery-electric push mower that I've charged from solar panels all season.
Check back in 2-3 years when I (hope to) get an EV. I'm sure I'll be crowing about it then 😆
In the mean time, would you like to hear about my solar powered lawn mower?
The usable south-facing roof area is full, unfortunately. I'll have to do ground mount in the back yard and run a bunch of conduit if I want to add any more PV.
The 32 kWh of batteries are made of two 16 kWh batteries in parallel. Since this system is in lieu of a backup generator, I have it configured to only draw the batteries down to 50%. That leaves the bottom 16 kWH available for emergency use. Basically, for day to day usage, I treat the battery as being half the capacity it really is.
I've only been running this system for about 3 weeks now, but the batteries have been operating between 65% and 90% pretty consistently even running the A/C pretty heavily. They've been closer to low 60s this past week, but the wildfire smoke was choking out the sunlight Thursday and Friday.
about $0.06 USD/kWh
😭 The per-kilowatt hour rider fees on top of my base rate per kWh are way more than that lol.
Lol, def can become an obsession. First hand experience there.
I've wanted a whole house PV system for a long time, and this is just me finally getting around to making it happen. SO and I were talking about getting a backup generator installed, but that would have been about $7,000 for something that would only get used two or three times a year since our power doesn't go out often (we have no heat or ability to cook when the power goes out, and it's always in the dead of winter when we lose power). The PV system I sketched out was about $9.000, but in addition to covering us during outages, we could use it daily to reduce electric bill so, unlike the generator, this would pay for itself over time.
SO finally came around to my way of thinking, so here we are lol. My limiting factor is usable roof area. Of the roof that's south facing, only about 14x20 feet of it is suitable for mounting panels. There's a west-facing gable, but it's blocked most of the time by a tree. The east-facing side of the gable is available, but it's pretty much always foggy in the mornings here, so it wouldn't add much to the system.
Unless I build a ground mount setup in the back yard, we're pretty much at the limit of how many panels I can buy. I'm kind of glad for that because otherwise I'd just keep buying them.
For heating, I've been wanting to try a solar collector. Not sure if you've come across Greenhill Forge on YouTube or anywhere that covers his projects, but he does all sorts of off-grid stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cPuVZjnbi4
That's where he builds and tests several different styles of solar collectors for solar heating. The collectors are pretty inexpensive to build so that may be an option if you just want to (help) keep a shed warm.
I came across some articles about how people are upcycling a specific cryptocurrency mining single-board computer and decided to pick one up myself and put together a rig. The board is the AMD BC-250 which is similar to the APU in the PS5.
I've been out of the gaming scene since the Xbox 360 and never could justify the expense of building a gaming rig, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to build something decent for under $200. This thing rocks and can play my entire catalog of Steam games, many of which I bought on sale and worried later about having a PC that could actually run them.
Total cost: $180 though would have been closer to $250 if didn't already have an SSD on hand. Price also doesn't include the filament I used to print the case as I already had that as well. I didn't check the exact usage, but expect to use the better part of a 1 kg roll on the print. It used about half a roll of red and half a roll of black in my case.
A few optional components added to the build that I already had in my parts bin:
Depending on the parts you have on hand, you could still potentially build this for $200 or less even after the price hike of the boards.
I'm running Bazzite on it and booting directly into Steam Big Picture. Works great!
Note: These aren't mine and are from the Printables model page as I neglected to take photos as I went, and it's kind of a pain to disassemble this because of the way it goes together. I also modded the heatsink and cut off the little ridges since it was originally made for rack cooling and didn't cool well with just a fan on top.
Yes, you paid for 2 day shipping and that's what they use, but they don't tell you about the nearly week-long handling time.
I'm doing a large print, and about 1/4 of the way through, I started hearing this horrible, intermittent noise. Sounds very close to nails on a chalkboard. Naturally I assume something is starting to wear out (belt, roller, motor, etc) or there's some parts rubbing together that shouldn't.
The print seems to be going along fine, though, so I let it be until I couldn't stand it anymore.
Finally sat down and watched it, and the culprit is the extruder fan blowing into the large, hollow tree support bases which was acting like a whistle. lol.
I've only been 3D printing for a little over a year, and this is the largest print I've ever done so far, so if this is normal, it caught me totally off guard.
I was ambivalent about "Those Old Scientists" and bringing the LD cast in as live-action characters. Ended up loving it.
I was ambivalent about "Subspace Rhapsody" and a musical episode in general. Also loved it.
I was initially ambivalent about the puppet episode, but if history is anything to go by, bring it on.