The First PipBoy We’ll See This Year

You heard that we’re shutting down Hackaday on November 11, 2015, right? That’s the release of Fallout 4, and trust me: I’m not getting anything done that day.  A new game in the Fallout series means more power armor cosplay builds, and hundreds of different wearable electronics from the friendly folks at Vault-Tec. I speak of the PipBoy, the wrist-mounted computer of the Fallout series, and [THEMCV] built the first one we’ll see this year. It won’t be the last.

The PipBoy [THEMCV] created is the 3000a model, the same one found in Fallout 3 and New Vegas. We’ve seen a few real-live versions of the PipBoy before; this one used the PipBoy prop that came with the Amazon exclusive special edition of Fallout 3. Things have changed in the years since the release of Fallout 3, and  to build his PipBoy, [THEMCV] just bought one from Shapeways.

The electronics consist of a Raspberry Pi Model A, 3.5″ LCD, a battery pack, and a great piece of software to emulate the software of the PipBoy 3000. It looks great, but [THEMCV] still needs to find a few retrofuturistic buttons and dials to complete the PipBoy experience.

Video below.

27 thoughts on “The First PipBoy We’ll See This Year

  1. I have no idea what “Fallout” is (I assume a game) – but I do love that someone is willing to “officially shut down” a web site when a new release of something appears. That’s enthusiasm. I really like that – passion is a good thing, no matter what philosophers and religious dumbs are crying.

    1. Fallout is a video game series.
      Fallout 1+2 were fairly old isometric RPGs.

      The series was sort of rebooted about 7/8 years ago with Fallout 3 and followed up with New Vegas. Both extremely popular.

      Fallout 4 was announced last week. Possibly most anticipated game to appear at the e3 conference this year.

      I myself am waiting on new vegas to finish installing again right now, fancied replaying it.

    1. I believe he is saying the for the day of November 11th that the HaD office will be closed due to the launch of the game. Poor choice of words saying Shutting Down as it implies complete closure

      1. there is a mass difference between humor, which I understood btw, and poor choice of words. the words chosen to convey the message were poorly done and sent a mixed message. that is not confusion, that is poor writing

  2. Awesome project!!! Connecting the map screen to a real time GPS to make a map of your local area would be sweet. So when you walk around in the real world it would start mapping. Collecting real time bio stats with sensors placed in your Vault 101 jacket would be cool too.

    1. Just thinking the same thing about the GPS. Dunno if I could be bothered to write the mapping code for that though. Then again Bethesda managed to. IIRC a lot of the interface code in Fallout 3 and New Vegas is actually Macromedia Flash apps. So mmmmaaaybe, one could have a look at extracting it?

      Or otherwise just stick an image filter on Google Earth to get something halfway close.

      Far as I know mapping data is valuable and proprietary. GPS companies sell maps for various regions you can download to SD card, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was encrypted, or at least too complex to easily mess about with. Probably too much work for a novelty you’re not gonna wear all the time anyway.

    1. It’s just a toughened Android phone with hardware to link to whatever radios militaries and emergency services use. Presumably that last part is the unique feature and why it presumably costs a ludicrous amount of money.

  3. Does anyone know where to get the lens he uses for the screen. The domed glass looks so awesome but I can’t find anything big enough to use from slide viewers online, they all max out at like 2in by 2in. His looks around 3×3 or so. Please let me know if anyone knows!!

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