Yep, Industrial PIs, but why?

On my day job (as opposed to writing this, which I do mainly at night, and it is not a job because it makes me no money whatsoever) I sometimes have been a user of industrial controllers based on the raspberry pi. I have mainly used these Industrial Shields units and have been extremely happy so far.

These units are quite interesting: they actually come with a commercial pi on them which provides all the connectivity that comes with any pi (model 4 at the moment of writing this) and, in the most basic option, also come with their own board that ads a small UPS and an extra ethernet port. On top of that all that is housed on DN rail mountable enclosures that include a beefy heatsink.

To be honest I use these as rugged(ish) Linux computers with built-in UPS only, and I have never required the I/O and cannot comment on that (important) flavor of these machines. My usual setup is a high availability (HA) + synced data setup comprised of 2 PLC21 units each with 8G of RAM. I use keepalived to share a virtual IP between the 2 units and that setup can swap from the main to the backup and back to normal operations seamlessly with no downtime - pretty neat (let me know if that is something you would like to know more about, and I will write about how I make that happen on an upcoming TTYM issue). I also require that the two units are installed side by side on a din rail inside a rack (so I really need this form factor). Additionally, I use Tailscale to communicate with both machines (I wrote about Tailscale on a previous TTYM issue).

So far and after quite some time of reliable service, I had none of the issues associated with the system losing power and corrupting the SD card - a sign the integrated UPS is doing its job. Any application that requires an extra level of reliability should consider one of these devices. Starting at EUR290 and going all the way up to EUR565, including the pi, it doesn’t sound too steep at all.

So, what do you think, would you have any use for this? (see this TTYM issue for a list of other options on the industrial Pi world).

ISS size

The International Space Station (ISS) is an engineering marvel, but just how big is it? Stretching about 109 meters (357 feet) from end to end, the ISS is roughly the length of an American football field, including the end zones (which total 120 yards, or about 110 meters). While it’s not quite as wide as a football field, its sprawling solar arrays and modular design give it a far more complex and irregular shape than a simple rectangle.

But allow me to go even more metric 😁😁: if we compare it to a soccer (or football) field, the ISS is slightly longer than a standard pitch, which typically ranges from 100 to 110 meters in length. However, the ISS’s habitable space is much more compact—imagine squeezing laboratories, living quarters, and docking ports into an area smaller than the playing surface of a Premier League match. So, while the station may not cover as much ground as a soccer field, its three-dimensional structure makes it a far more intricate and impressive feat of human ingenuity.

At the movies and saw this, what movie am I at?

It’s almost like a teenager in 1985 accidentally traveled to 1955 in a time-traveling car and must ensure his parents fall in love to secure his own existence. Dramatic and funny.

That’s all folks!

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