The DataMonk

“He sat in a booth alone. What looked like headphones worn like a visor covered his eyes as

fingers danced over a slim, red lit keyboard. A card slid into a adapter off the side of his cyberdeck, the

DataMonk. P@perback kept an archive of information. Manuals, guides, lessons, textbooks, programs,

hell even movies. A few quick clicks of the handheld mouse and the job was done. The card, now full of

knowledge unrestrained, slid across the table to another humble soul seeking digital enlightenment.”

My (personal) definition of a Cyberdeck is a piece of hardware put together from private

(scavenged miltech, corporate factory models) and publicly available components and without access to a

lot of high end equipment (3d printers, welders).

So I decided it would be limited to tools and to no more then a person could conceivably move in

one go. For parts I kept it to things I can readily get and is available. The only concession to this was the

Avegant Glyph. There just aren’t many, good HMD with HDMI in. Or USB, as is with the vufine. So I

allowed myself one piece of discontinued lucky to find or salvage up bit of tech.

The concept for the DataMonk is knowledge. I use it as a archive of all kinds of media. Manuals,

guides, instructional video, entertainment, and anything I think might be useful to archive. It also serves

as my daily driver, so basic office and internet, and fun personal additions like SDR. So I wanted it

mobile and to be battery capable with all the bells and whistles connected.

I’ll be leaving out the details of the R&D portion of this build. I did a lot of fiddling as I figured

out a build I could actually use every day (writing this on the DataMonk in fact). There was a lot of

change. At one point it was sandwiched between pieces of redwood with hand carved Mushrooms, skull

butterflies, fox heads, and scorpion tails. At another point the screen and keyboard were side by side. The

moral of this part is don’t be afraid to alter your plans if something isn’t working. Just keep building.

So, here is what it is and how it came together.

Step One

I cut off the narrow, upturned tail of the board with a rounded cut. I then stuck the bumpers on either end and applied stickers generously.

Step Two

Cut off some of the attachment and barrel holding bits to the airsoft p90 receiver. I fit the

removed sections so what was left bit into the board and friction locked in place. I drilled holds in the

board and used two zip ties and glue to fix it in place. I clipped the key reel onto this piece to tilt it just a

little and keep it from wobbling when flat in use.

Step Three

I drilled through the board around the top middle and stuck the m2 bolt through. I fastened it in

place with the nut. Then I screwed the tablet tripod adapter onto the bolt and bent it towards the opposite

end so it was angled. Used glue to lock the bolt in place unless I really want it off.

Step Four

I screwed the picatinny in under the holder and extending off the bottom of the board. I also

rough fit the raspad 3 and screwed the bike grip covered dowels in place to either side. I added glue to the

bottoms to help hold in place.

Step Five

I cut the back flat portion off the raspad 3. I also remove most of the taller edge of the case. Hook

the Pi up normally, then in the two usb 2.0 slot left empty put the mouse receiver and cord for the

keyboard in. The usb 3.0 is used for the SSD. Attach the cyberdeck hat so it sticks out the top.

Cut out a piece of stamped metal to fit over the removed back of the case and glue it in place,

using electrical tape to hold it along the edge for now. Place a clear acrylic sheet over the left side of the

case so the metal back doesn’t rest on the usb ports, etc.

Over the pi snip out two holes of the stamped metal just smaller then the fans. Use bolts and nuts

to fasten the fans over the holes. Close it up and wire the fans to the cyberdeck hat.

Wrap excess keyboard cord around the bolt so it feeds to just past where the mount is. Mount the

raspad 3 and secure in place.

Step Six

Using electrical tape and cable clips place the HD partially under the left end of the raspad and

secure it there. Loop its cord around the m2 bolt and using cable clips secure it for in and out of use. Use

a cable clip to attach the SSD to the HD cord and so it sits over the HD.

PIC9 (Underside of keyboard)

Step Seven

Hook the keyboard up and secure the keyboard to the rails.

Use more cable clips to secure the N7 patch beside the right handle. Between this friction and

more cable clips to keep them from sliding store the card adapter and nooelec here.

Flash desired OS’ to the SD cards. Put backup images on the HD. Load the HD with personal

backups and desired media.

Add further aesthetic touches.

That is it, all done and ready to enjoy.

In conclusion it works for what I was aiming for. Areas to be improved on are battery life.

Raspad gives about two hours with everything but the sdr dongle. Its the bare minimum of what I

consider useful.

On the plus side I found out the usb ports on the raspad are powered. Which is a nice bonus since

I was having power issues when hooking things up to previous iterations.

And that is the DataMonk.