Fallout 3 wrist-mounted Personal Information Processor, working pipboy 3000 (made with Arduino)…

This is the first test of my attempt to build a working pipboy 3000, complete with fully functional controls just as depicted in the game.

It consists of an HTC Desire HD as the screen and processor, and an Arduino Uno with a USB host shield running microbridge to act as an ADB host for the phone. The Arduino then sends button presses to the phone via TCP over USB. The casing is a cast made by Skruffy over at http://www.therpf.com , it’s amazing!

It came out quite well, with a few problems:

– I couldn’t fit the potentiometer for the dial inside (the phone is in the way), so I mounted it on the front. I wasn’t too bothered by that as I think it looks fairly cool.

– The phone and the Arduino and the battery take up so much room that I can’t fit my arm in anymore, making it kind of hard to use as a costume accessory to SDCC 2011 as I had planned.

– The electronics consist of some stripboard and lots and lots of loose wires. My soldering is pretty dodgy and the result is quite flaky; lights go out and buttons stop working as it is moved around. It’s my first electronics project though so I’ve learned a lot and I think I can improve it.