TycStation field notes · one-person datacenter · Cologne

This is TycStation

· depth: the tour · 3 min · architecture

The goal: find the limit of what is possible in one corner of a flat in Cologne. Being rational is explicitly excluded. It also happens to run the flat. Step one of three: the room, how it grew, and what every box in the picture is. As of 2026-09-20.

The room at night on 20 September 2026 in pink and blue light: a wooden desk and black chair beneath two curved monitors and a wall-mounted screen showing TycStation, two glowing dodecahedron lamps on the speakers, small computers under the desk, and a curtain of blue lights beside the window.

Well, actually, this:

The stack under the desk at night, in warm lamp light and purple: a small screen showing the name TycStation and a flat switch on top of a black box with a row of blue lights, two small computers upright beneath it, two white switches standing upright beside them with rows of green lights and a bundle of white cables, and the battery on the right.

20 September 2026, under the right end of the desk.

Four computers, three switches, two firewalls, a storage box and a battery. Three of the computers stand in the shelf under the desk. The fourth is the tower next to it, the desk PC: every change to the other three is written on it. Nobody needs this at home.

What is what

The corner at night in magenta and blue light, with twelve numbered tags. On the left, the shelf under the desk: 1 and 2 on the two small computers at the bottom, 3 on the black box above them, 6 on the flat white switch on top of it and 7 on the small screen above that; beside them two white switches standing upright, 4 on the right one and 5 on the left one, 9 on the white cables between them and 8 on the battery on the floor. A tall loudspeaker stands in the middle. On the right, 11 on a white glass-sided tower PC and 10 on the black storage box on top of it, and 12 on a thin white cable lying on the floor in front of the tower.

19 September 2026. Real light, real hardware, no render.

  1. Small box, about three times the tower (11). Except for graphics. Team of three with 2 and 3. Runs the smart home, the websites and the password vault.
  2. Its twin. The same machine. If one stops, the other takes over most of its work.
  3. The third computer. It holds last night’s copies, watches the cameras, and is the third vote.
  4. The fast switch. It connects the three computers to each other and to everything else.
  5. The switch for the room. TV, hi-fi and the other wired things in the flat. It also sends power down the network cable.
  6. The switch for the Wi-Fi and the storage box.
  7. Remote screen and keyboard for the three computers, for the day one of them will not start.
  8. Battery. It carries everything through a short power cut and shuts it down cleanly in a long one.
  9. A flag on every cable. Both ends name their socket.
  10. The storage box. Photos, music, films, and a second copy of every backup.
  11. The tower. The one with the looks. The fourth computer, the desk PC: every change is written here.
  12. The white cable on the floor. A leak detector: it notices water before the computers do.

Not in the picture: the modem. The two firewalls are programs, one on computer 1 and one on computer 2.

How it grew

  • Before the rebuild: a small upright stack under the desk with two silent mini computers, black and ribbed, one on top and one at the side, two silver switches with lit coloured sockets and white cables, a white and a black box fixed to their side, and a battery on the floor.October 2025. Two silent mini-PCs, two switches, and one single box between the flat and the internet.
  • Two of the new switches on the desk with their lids off: circuit board, copper heat pipes and a finned cooler exposed, the small fans at the edge of the board.July 2026. The new switches arrive; their whiny fans come out before a single cable goes in.
  • The gap between the desk and the loudspeaker in magenta light: the white switches standing upright, cables hanging loose, a dark mini computer on the floor in front of them.August 2026. Into the gap beside the hi-fi, standing upright.
  • The stack under the desk at night, in purple light: a small screen showing the name TycStation and a flat switch on top of a black box with a row of blue lights, two small computers upright beneath it, two white switches standing upright beside them with rows of green lights and a bundle of white cables, and the battery on the right.September 2026. The third computer joins, and every cable gets a flag.

Done to find out what is possible

  • Every cable wears a flag at both ends, printed from the same list that configures the switches. How they were printed.
  • The two lamps run software written here. Their maker ships the light effects without the source, so the effects were read out of the lamps, rebuilt on open software and published for anyone to use.
  • The air purifiers’ maker went dark. They run software built in the flat now, octopus on the display included. The picture and the story.
  • The electricity meter is read by a small reader built here from a community project. It talks to the flat and to nothing else.
  • All of it has to stay quieter than the hi-fi next to it. Nothing in it is allowed to whine.
  • Internet down? The lights and the music keep working.

Next: why three of the four work as a team, and what happened the day one of them was crashed on purpose.

Go deeper: the architecture →