Powered by the Sun and Cooled by the Sea
Built by Darren Sickboy // I.T. Security Specialist // Northern☘️Ireland
Moviedrome is our off grid home media hub and custom computing project. Merging high end enthusiast computing with commercial grade green energy🍃Combining solar energy with a liquid-cooled CPUs/GPUs creates a sustainable, high-performance smart🏠home setup.
🌍 Preserving Cinema, Powered by the Planet
- Physical Media Safeguard Inspired by the original BBC Moviedrome with Alex Cox and the legend that is Mark Cousins who introduced a generation to weird and wonderful🎬flim. Moviedrome is our next generation archival initiative dedicated to rescuing physical media and safeguarding cinematic history on eco friendly, off grid infrastructure.
- Resisting Digital Degradation Today, films are vanishing. Disc rot, format degradation, and corporate streaming algorithms mean independent cinema and cult masterpieces are at risk of being lost forever.
- 100% Grid Detached This project operates entirely detached from the traditional electrical grid, built to archive and experience physical media without requiring streaming network dependencies or grid electricity.
- Physical Media in the Wild Before a film enters my digital archive, it goes on one final journey across Northern Ireland or the Republic of. I take the physical media out of dark rooms and embed them directly into the wild NI ☘️. I hunt down the stark and cinematic Northern Irish backdrops from battered Atlantic coastlines to council estates, then photograph the physical media wherever i feel it fits. 📸
☀️ Powered by the Sun
- 9.1 kWp Solar Array 20 high-efficiency 455W solar panels, a 9.1 kWp solar array ensuring we max out our green energy generation even on🌤️overcast Northern☘️Irish days. The Solar System is optimised to capture maximum daylight that powers the whole house and gardens.
- Dura-i Hybrid 6kW Inverter The central system brain managing power routing with 97.3% efficiency.
- Dura16 Battery Storage While the running of the house is being powered with the sun during the day our Dura-i 6kW Inverter directs the harvested energy to the Dura16 Battery pack. This stored energy powers the house at night and one battery stores 16.1kW of🔋power each, Usable amount 85% @ 13.69 kWh connect up to 12 units in 15% Reserve Limit @ 164.28 kWh usable (leaves 28.92 kWh protected).
- Grid Isolation Hardware Heavy-duty Changeover Switch paired with a dedicated physical Earthspike⚡makes this a true Emergency Power Supply (EPS) off-grid system during blackouts. When the grid goes down and i feel some dark days are coming for this world, we will keep the lights💡and🌡️heating on.
🖥️Hardware that's powered by the sun☀️& cooled by the sea🌊
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The Hardware
Solid Stained Irish Oak desk base
Logitech PRO X TKL with Custom Shamrock Esc Keycap
Razer Naga V2 Pro
HyperX QuadCast 2S
Elgato Stream Deck + XLR + Ruby Dials
Custom Big Grin Mini Mask
80" Samsung Quantum 4K display
18" G18 240Hz Nebula display
16" ASUS ZenScreen
ROG Strix G18 Gaming Laptop | Intel Core Ultra 9 | GeForce RTX 5070 Ti | 32gb Ram
Custom built Moviedrome Desktop | Ryzen 9 9950X3D | RTX 5070 Ti | 64gb Ram. - 99.9% Pure Copper CPU Water Block Water cooled with 99.9% copper blocks for instant thermal transfer. 27mm thick radiator with 14 rows of aluminum tubes paired with dense 20mm folded fins for rapid heat dissipation. moving water rapidly while keeping noise under 20 dBA for silent running.
🎬 Film Room // Office // Living Area
- Custom 9ft Cinema Screen In the Film Room is a homemade 9ft Screen with 7 Coats of Super White Flat Matt and blackwidow mix with a 3 inch Crushed Velvet Pure Black Surround. 1000Watt Dolby Atmos creates a class 3D listening experience🌀
- Custom Media Wall The living area is a modern bright media wall design with soft pinks and earthy olive geeens, a multi burner focal point and solid irish oak mantel. The tech is a 1000 Watt 3D Dolby Atmos system with a Samsung S95H 4K OLED Vision, this living area flows into the garden🏡which flows into the forest🌳🌲🌳
- Smart Infrastructure & Deer Cam! 🦌 The house is engineered with a future proof network infrastructure with high speed wired performance shielded CAT8 cabling forming a lightning fast physical backbone supplying (PoE) Power over Ethernet to an integrated CCTV security network. (Code Name🦌Deer Watch!) The network has collective intelligence, so when a single perimeter camera detects a breach, it immediately signals neighboring cameras to pivot, zoom and track. The system also instantly differentiates between human and local wildlife meaning the Deer can be tracked crossing into the forest in peace.
