If you’re a true Fallout fan, you may feel the need to have a Pip-Boy 3000 information display on your left forearm at all times. Though smartwatches provide some of this device’s capabilities, they generally lack a “radiation” sensor, or “weapons” including a TV-B-GONE device or laser.
Fortunately, Maker Will Sweatman has the solution with his excellent Pip-Boy 3000 Mark II device. According to him, it’s “my attempt to build the most advanced Pip-Boy 3000 on planet Earth, and I believe I’ve succeeded.” The wearable gadget is open source, and contained in the 21-step set instructables article linked are files: for 3D prints, display, laser cuts, and Arduino source code.
The build is physically quite impressive, as introduced in the first video below. In the second clip, Sweatman goes over the different screens of his prop.
The brains of the device are provided by an Arduino Pro Mini (ATmega328P) 16MHz microcontroller, which communicates with the display over serial. The display, a 4D Systems 4.3″ capacitive touch screen, reveals menus saved on a micro SD card, allowing the Arduino to take inputs and outputs from the device without handling the graphical elements directly.
You can see all the electrical elements laid out in breadboard format in the video below. Fitting everything into a “forarm” housing had to be quite a challenge.
You can see the previous version of the Pip-Boy here, or for another (much smaller) take on wearable information displays, check out this ATtiny85 ring watch!