Functional Pip-boy 3000 Mk IV from Fallout 4

I also believe in doing it right over doing it fast. I'm as much about the process as the finished result. So add my voice to the "take as long as you need -- I'll still be here" camp. Anyone in this hobby who doesn't allow for Darth Real Life (aka DRL) delays has obviously never run into something that kicks them in the teeth yet. Me, I have. So I am the last person to get impatient or twitchy.

Did you ever actually finish the design for the twelve-position-selector-switch version of the holotape chassis? Having a dozen holotapes to work on, add labels to, weather, and so forth would definitely give me something to feel I was keeping my hand in on this. If not, I still will have the twelve casings to get finished, though those will take less time.

--Jonah

zapwizard

I am very sorry to hear about your situation. I have not commented yet but have followed for a long time. Please do not concern yourself with this project or even the releasing of anything finished or unfinished right now. Like you said the preparations and moving plans need to come first and foremost. I believe this trumps even working out how to release unfinished work. Take your time and sort out life and then jump back on the horse as you can. Best of luck!

sorry for your loss

Thanks for all the input folks. It's great to have some consensus. Already two more 3.8" MIPI LCD displays have popped up on chinese websites, it seems to be the go-to size for VR headsets, and so hopefully in a few months those will be more readily available. (Currently $250 for just one, without documentation.)

Amazing Project first of all.

The group kit isn"t bad put I was wondering if you would be able to sell the complete files when completed so someone can print it themselves. Will that be possible at all? I really dont want to spend like $400 on the printed parts alone.

Like have a kit with the electronics/hardware and files as another available kit to buy.

I was just wondering. Keep up the amazing work and cant wait to see more.

01eggy10,

That may become a possibility, but that is not currently the plan. The CAD files are not designed for FDM at-home printing. My own prototyping on a FDM machine has been both better than I expected, and very near impossible for some of the parts. Many of the prototype parts had to be printed four or five times with process tweaks before they resulted in a usable part. The FDM prototypes can also be very fragile and don't wear well. Since the interior of FDM prints isn't solid (even with 100% infill) the parts aren't as strong as they should be.

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Real-life update... The Pip-Boy project is currently packed up carefully awaiting a house move. It will be months before I get back into it in full swing.

Still watching... But no rush!... Have had to budget severely lately and now my GBP£ is worth a little less. :S

It itches at me every week, I want to get back into this project full swing. But I have about half of my house packed up now, so I couldn't even if I wanted to now.
Glad people are still monitoring it though.

zapwizard said:

It itches at me every week, I want to get back into this project full swing. But I have about half of my house packed up now, so I couldn't even if I wanted to now.
Glad people are still monitoring it though.

Click to expand...

May your move be smooth and uneventful good sir.

Hi, just found this and I've got to say your doing an incredible job. I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere here but for the screen you could get a Plano convex rectangular lens and put it on top of your LCD.
EDIT: i didn't mean. Magnifying but a sort of shaped peace of acrylic, a magnifying one would horribly distort the LCD. Maybe get a dead crt and heat acrylic and bend it over the top of it.

Beweasd

On the Pip-Boy 3000, people took the lenses out of a old slide viewer to create the CRT effect. A bent piece of acrylic can create a convex shape, but it won't create much of a lens effect. That is probably okay for the Pip-Boy 3000 MkIV, since the display has a much more subtle lens effect.

Currently, I would just be happy to get my hands on a 3.8" MIPI LCD display.

Firstly, hello! Brilliant work, I wish you well during your move.
Secondly, I've done just a little digging, potentially more soon, but I may have a lead here:
http://www.panelook.com/H381DLN01.0_AUO_3.8_OLED_invitemdetail_109438.html
I suspect you may have already found this, but I hope to help in some way

Thanks.
I regularly visit panel look now.
That panel is what is going into the VR glasses I posted earlier. Note that supplier lists 500 pieces. They also
List a MOQ of 1, but that is typically not true, just a ploy to get contacts. I may send them a email from a disposable address. They at least are listing it a the proper AUO brand instead of trying to pass it off as their own.

Just showing up so say I am still alive, and still planning on getting back to this project.

I did come across the Razer OSVR HDK2. It is a open source VR headset. And it uses two of the 3.81" OLED MIPI displays which I want to source for the Pip-Boy. I suspect that these are also the same display that will be used in the Thinkgeek Pip-Boy, but as you may know that one is delayed once again too.

Despite it being "Open Hardware" they haven't released the Bill of Materials. However for $220 I can order their screen upgrade kit which includes two of the panels. So in theory that makes each display $110. Which is still cheaper than the Chinese Alibaba supplies are listing. Considering the 12-lay PCB that comes with that kit, I suspect these displays cost ~$50 each wholesale.

At the very least the OSVR is actually shipping unlike all the other VR displays I have found with this same display, so that is a good sign. I have e-mailed their support people, hopefully they can hook me up with some information.

That's a nice update. Hopefully, you can finally nail down a reliable source for the screens you/we need in sufficient quantity and for a decent price. I'm still working on everything for my vault suit, so my arm isn't feeling too naked yet.

--Jonah

A glimmer of hope in the LCD world!

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Some folks working on the OSVR liked my project and were able to send me some used parts. Enough to get the displays functional so I could see how well they would work. So a huge thanks to Razer.

First off, these these displays are very high resolution. 1200x1080 each at just 3.8" Diagonal. These are the same displays I found a while back for use in the PicoNeo VR headset. They are 90Hz, AMOLED, low-persistence displays. While all those stats seem cool, it means the display aren't very good for use outside of VR. They are designed to work close to your eyes in near 100% darkness.

This means they are not as bright as they could be. They are about as bright as my iPhone when it is set to 25%. This is due to the low-persistence display, and it is apparently hard coded in. They also do not have a front polarizer or anti-reflective coating. So they wash out in anything besides office lighting. Hopefully adding a front polarizer film will help with that.

I did mess with the nVidia Control panel to see what I could do in there. Playing with some of the settings in there I was able to get the display to look a bit brighter. We will see what I can do in Linux later.

All that said, I plan on moving forward with these displays. Their high resolution makes them look much sharper than either the 640x480 or 320x240 3.5" LCDs. And the 3.8 size makes the display almost perfectly game accurate in size.

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As you can see in the mock-up image above, the 3.8inch display is a perfect size for the Pip-Boy. The near-square aspect ratio feels just right.

I really wish the display were brighter, than I could place it behind some tinted acrylic to hide the edges of the display. That acrylic could even be curved a tiny bit to create a CRT like look. I have some sample sheets of tinted acrylic, so I will at least try it to see how it looks. Perhaps a clear acrylic over a polarized sheet will bring it all together.

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If anything getting my hands on these gives me some hope. These are 4-lane MIPI displays, exactly what the DragonBoard is made to drive. And since the OSVR HDK2 VR headset is open source, I will have a jump start on powering and wiring these displays.

Razer continue to impress me from their support point of view, both for regular PC parts and now with this! good job with the screens!

Except for Wasetland Weekends, most of the time I'll have this on would be in my living room being a dork or in a convention hall at normal to dim lighting (depending ont eh convention, the part of the convention, and time of day). So the brightness doesn't present too much of an issue. With my Android tablet, about the only time I ever have it above 25% brightness is outside on a very bright day. Guessing it's more trouble than it's worth to put a brighter illumination panel behind...

Not-a-poke-just-curious: Got any vague notion when you might have the updated holotape chassis ready for prime time? I haven't been in a huge rush to get the dozen cases I need given there's nothing to attach them to yet (I don't want to get the existing dummy chassis that you have up on Shapeways, only to have to replace them whenever the revised version is ready). I plan to get them in Q1 2017, after I've taken care of a massive purchase I've been saving toward for the last two quarters. If it's imminent, I'll plug the cases into my budget sooner. If it's still unknown, I'll delay toward the end of the quarter. The rest of the costume still has a long way to go, yet, anyway.

--Jonah

The screen is AMOLED. So no way to make it brighter with a extra backlight. But ya, not with the extra effort.

Physically the holotapes won't look any different. The only reason to wait is if you want them to send data to my Pip-Boy design. Which is still months away. I really can't get back into the project full time until the spring.

I can work with that. Yeah, I want the interactive version. I might get one of the dumies to do a concept "demonstrator" holotape in clear with a clear case. I had a notion that it might be an optical replacement for magnetic tape -- something like the clear leader you see on the tape in a cassette, with something done to it. I'm still conceptualizing what might theoretically justify the "holo" appellation. The prefix means whole or complete, and not necessarily a laser-created three dimensional image. But even limiting it to that... I've been reviewing what I know about flexible crystals, photonic computers, and crystalline data-storage media. I'm curious what I'll ultimately come up with.

--Jonah