PIP-GRL 31415 (not spam!)

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lone_wanderer said:
My goal for my pip boy right now is just the main screens and being able to use a rotary enable switch, a five-position switch, and push buttons near the LEDs like pip boy 1 to move within and between them. I think I will worry about GPS and health sensors much later!

My only credential right now is that I have taken a basic electronics class so hopefully I won't blow anything up. Mind if i ask where you got your LCD?
Click to expand...


Haha, that was how I started too... just a simple idea about a screen and a few buttons :)

Well, your knowledge about electronics is already above my level, I never received this in school, and my first electronics project was my Teensy a little over 2 months ago.
Before that my biggest electronics project was switching a lightbulb ;)

I would like to mention (again) that I am a complete noob (read: idiot) with all this, and that if I can get this far, I'm positive you can do it too, and probably better :)


I got the screen from Adafruit
Should you get it, keep in mind that there is a Shield version for Arduinos available too!
 
In case you are still curious about the code, I attached a zip file which contains my project folder.

I have split up my project into multiple files simply to keep it all bit more organized but it is still quite messy :)

View attachment PIP_GRL_31415_v2.zip

(I apologize in advance to anybody who takes offense from my horrible coding style)
 
You are BAD. ASS.

I was going to give up on this project before I found your forum posts. Now I've ordered an LCD and bought a 5-position switch to play with.

Do you think I should order the Teensy? I'm debating on it because I don't want to spend more money, but it seems like the only microcontroller board small enough to make the pip boy size I want feasible.
 
lone_wanderer said:
You are BAD. ASS.

I was going to give up on this project before I found your forum posts. Now I've ordered an LCD and bought a 5-position switch to play with.

Do you think I should order the Teensy? I'm debating on it because I don't want to spend more money, but it seems like the only microcontroller board small enough to make the pip boy size I want feasible.
Click to expand...


Thanks, but I think you're too kind though :)

Well, I chose the Teensy (when I didn't have this idea yet) because of the posts I read online about Teensy itself, but also the support of the creator(s) & community.

One of the examples is here in this post, where I am given support in getting the screen to work.
The default code needed some modification and I've been given the push I needed towards the right direction.
Disclaimer: This doesn't automatically mean that things will get fixed for you quickly though, some things take time... but if anybody can help/point in the right direction they will

The other reason I went for the Teensy was the fact that I didn't knew anything about either Arduino or Teensy, so I might as well jump in the deep end.

The code language is pretty much the same, but the hardware itself is more powerful.
Unfortunately a lot is still undocumented, but that will soon change as I understand (website updates, and there is talk on the forum about a community driven Wiki site).

Unless you are in a hurry, you can always get a Teensy when you are 'ready' for it, but if you are like me and are not afraid of a new 'challenge', go for it!
I think you'll be sitting with a big grin just like me, simply because you got something working which was 'magic' a few days/weeks ago ;)

Ofcourse, keep in mind that it is all electronics, and that you might blow up something along the way.
I haven't so far, but if someday smoke comes from my Teensy or one of the other parts, I won't cry about it, I'll order new ones and isolate the problem to prevent it in the future.
Don't be afraid to learn from a bad experience ;)

Concidering the size of the Teensy, it is quite perfect for things like this, here is an image I made when I received it
teensy-small.jpg
(the OV-chipkaart is regular creditcard size)

The last thing I want to mention is something that I used to tell my customers when I still worked at a helpdesk:
Before you buy anything, look around on the market which product suits you best.
I can tell you a million things about how wonderful it is, but it might not meet your expectations.


In case you are still interested in the Teensy, I would point to this link, which contains a nice writeup on the Teensy 3.0.
Ofcourse, I can't tell you to buy something or not, you have to decide that for yourself, but I hope my thoughts help a bit :)


P.S. Sorry about the long posts each time, it appears I don't know how to give a short answer anymore :x
 
Glad I was able to revive your interest in an old project!

Which display did you order ?
I suspect the same from Adafruit, if not: did you get one with a touchsensitive layer, or normal screen ?

For what it's worth, I'm willing to help anyone with making a PIP-BOY (or GRL), but if you are not doing this on a Teensy, this forum isn't the right place.
In that case let me know and I'll send you a PM with my emailaddress so you can mail me directly ;)

However, if you are going to work with a Teensy, please post in the forum instead so other people can learn too from your experiences too!

I wish you the best of luck with your endeavour ofcourse, and I hope it will be (at least) as much fun as I had so far!
 
With help from Qumefox I got the MCP23016 port expander running on the I2C interface.
Since I learned a bit more about i2c from that, I decided to connect my Tilt Compensated Compass (LSM303DLM TR).

It worked straight out of the box, I still need to calibrate it further using the supplied example, but it points south and north fairly accurate without calibration already :)
Because everything is connected on a breadboard with short wires it is quite hard to test the tilt compensation, but I will test with longer wires at a later time.

Now I need to change the Map screens to show an arrow pointing in the direction I am facing, instead of a square box around the coordinates...
 
No... I haven't finished calibrating my compass yet, but I did add two other things and made a new video:

-I have connected a microphone to A10, and (quickly) created a very simple volume meter (if that is the right word for this thingie... boy, my english sucks...)
-The laserpointer module I ordered has now been connected to GP1,0 on the MCP23016, and is turned on/off every 5000 millisec, which means I can create a button for it in the options menu.


I also connected 2 ultra-bright (non-diffused) white LED's, so I can be the light of anyones life :p
Unfortunately I cannot show these in the video, because my webcam has issues with bright lights.
 
Some more progress updates:

1. Radio works and can be controlled from my TFT screen :)
2. The LDR works and now displays a light level
3. I changed the Settings page to split up in a Display, an Audio, a Controls and a Gameplay section.

As always, another youtube video where you can see it all in action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzEYRNvdHQ0

Things that have been added to my to-do list:
-Display RDS information on screen
-Goto frequency directly instead of search
-Connect LDR to backlight of TFT somehow
 
All right, I now have a teensy 3.0 and a 3.2" lcd (http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-2-inch-TF...016?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item416d6ff8f8)! I'm just waiting on the header pins, which should be here today. I also ordered this 5-position switch for the rotary selector switch on the bottom left of the pip-boy/grl http://www.ebay.com/itm/111009535184?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649. I bought a tactile red button from radio shack to test as one of the three selector buttons below the screen. They had an illuminated one, but it would switch to only-on or only-off instead of being a momentary switch with an LED that I could actually control. I also picked it to try because it sounded sweet. :) The only thing left as far as switches go, is an on/off switch and the rotary encoder type switch that goes to the left of the screen. And then I have to hook it all up without frying anything! ;)

How many pins does your LCD take up on your teensy? How many would it take without the touch capabilities? Did you follow a guide to figure out which pins to connect?

Your newest videos look amazing! I want to incorporate that LED control into my final build! And you even got radio working! So amazing.

Now I need to research how to play mp3s on an arduino so I can have Three Dog with me all the time. ^_^
 
Great to hear from you again, was hoping I haven't heard the last from you yet :)
Also, congratulations on the purchases, I truly hope you'll have as much fun as I had so far!

About my TFT I can give you quite a bit of information, but keep in mind that most of it is directly 'linked' with my TFT's display controller (ILI9325).

The screen has an 8bit data connection, and uses 8 pins on the Teensy for display uses.
There are another 5 pins used for CS/RD/WR/C-D/RST
The touch related pins are 4 in total: x-,y-,x+,y+
Then there are 3 pins remaining which go to 3.3v, GND and 3.3v on the backlight (with a 10k potmeter for dim function)

In total that means I need 13 pins without touch, and 17 with touch.

I did at first follow a tutorial regarding the connections, but this was meant for arduino's so I had to make some changes to the library to control the 8 data lines from a T3 instead of an ardu.

Thanks for the compliments, but like I said before, I'm sure that if I can do it, you can do it too, and better than me :)

If you mean turning on/off the LED's with 'the LED control', I would definately advice to look at an I/O pin expander such as the MCP23016

This beauty allows you to connect (and control) 16 LEDs/lasers/buttons/etc using 2 pins from the I2C bus.
The nice thing about these is that you can connect multiple expanders simultaneously on the same I2C bus.

The FM radio, the compass, and the 6DOF sensor I have are also using the I2C interface, so they don't use any (extra) pins, all of them are connected to A4 & A5 on the T3 which saves a lot of pins :)
I'm also interested on playing music files from SD, but haven't really looked into it yet.
So much to do... :)

I did receive my on/off switch, but have decided not to connect it until I no longer use a breadboard for my PIP-GRL, since my breadboard powersupply has its own on/off switch.

If it's not obvious yet, I am very interested in how your project will develop, so I'd love more updates as time goes by!
Questions are always welcome too, but do remember that I am still a rookie with all this ;)

edit:6DOF not 9DOF
 
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lone_wanderer said:
All right, I now have a teensy 3.0 and a 3.2" lcd (http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-2-inch-TF...016?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item416d6ff8f8)! I'm just waiting on the header pins, which should be here today. I also ordered this 5-position switch for the rotary selector switch on the bottom left of the pip-boy/grl http://www.ebay.com/itm/111009535184?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649. I bought a tactile red button from radio shack to test as one of the three selector buttons below the screen. They had an illuminated one, but it would switch to only-on or only-off instead of being a momentary switch with an LED that I could actually control. I also picked it to try because it sounded sweet. :) The only thing left as far as switches go, is an on/off switch and the rotary encoder type switch that goes to the left of the screen. And then I have to hook it all up without frying anything! ;)

How many pins does your LCD take up on your teensy? How many would it take without the touch capabilities? Did you follow a guide to figure out which pins to connect?

Your newest videos look amazing! I want to incorporate that LED control into my final build! And you even got radio working! So amazing.

Now I need to research how to play mp3s on an arduino so I can have Three Dog with me all the time. ^_^
Click to expand...

You should be advised that your display is not like the ILI9325 ZTiK used. the SSD1289 displays like that use a 16bit parallel interface, instead of an 8bit interface like the one ZTiK used. Also touch on the one you ordered will work differently as well.. These ebay SSD1299 displays.. at least the one I used, has an SPI interface for the touchscreen, instead of just raw X and Y outputs.

See this thread for my adventures getting an SSD1289 based display working on the teensy3. Though I haven't tackled touch yet.

http://forum.pjrc.com/threads/18002-Teensy-3-0-driving-an-SSD1289-with-utft
 
It has been a bit quiet from my end, but that doesn't mean I stopped working on this project.
I am in the progress of rewriting my entire code, doing things I should have done right from the beginning... just didn't expect how big it would become...

Also, I have signed up with a local hackerspace (Technologia Incognita) which I'll be visiting the day after tomorrow for the first time.
I was actually planning to go to the open day on March 30th, but was asked in the IRC channel to come to the next social meeting.

For anybody who is interested in the dutch hackerspaces 'open dagen', you can read more in dutch here (incl. a list of participating spaces).
 
offtopic:
Hackerspaces are awesome, wish I joined one years ago!
Even gave a presentation about my project on the open day titled 'How I learned to stop worrying and love the microcontroller'.
Hope everyone liked it, even though I didn't sleep the night before and I was quite nervous (my last presentation was in school ~16 years ago) :)

ontopic:
On my first visit to the space (wednesday the 20th) I was informed by fellow members that it is actually quite feasable to connect a geigertube and have a working(!) RAD meter, yay!
To follow up on that, when I arrived at the space the next week, one of the members came to me with quite a surprise: he placed an order for the tube :cool:

Also, I'm working on adding a new function: keyboard/mouse/joystick control from PIP-GRL to any computer.
 
Your project looks awesome! Just shows how useful the teensyduino can be. This is a totally different scale from the project I am working on, (controls for a flight simulator,) but I still might get some ideas from it.
 
Thanks RandyR, though due to a change in job I haven't had much time the last few weeks to continue working on it.
It might be quiet from this end for another month or two, until I am really settled in at work, and can start to focus on other things again ;)

Feel free to incorporate anything you see in my project in your own projects, no copyleft on my experiment :cool:
 
Hi there,

well, with my sloppy english I can´t even tell you how aw**** your project is, respect!
So I´m also a complete noob and your work is very inspirating. I´m still fiddling with a more simple display with much simpler tasks... :-\

Do you have a (rough) pinout/wiring schematic of your project?
Also I have read through the thread two times now but cannot find what radio you used...

Best regards,
Mike
 
Hi TheMike,

Thank you for your kind words!
Don't be discouraged by the simple tasks, you can still learn a lot from them. Have to start somewhere :)

Well, because the project is in constant state of change due to my many addons over time I do not have a schematic of the currect configuration.
Some parts still need connecting (like the Speakjet module and the Geigertube) and some already connected stuff needs to be rewired (mostly the display).
On top of this, my breadboards contain so many connections I really need to ask assistance from one of my fellow hackerspace members on creating a proper schematic.

I have been updating my project page on the hackerspace, which contains a writeup on the currect functions.
It also contains a list of parts, including a link to the suppliers, which can be found here : http://wiki.techinc.nl/index.php/PIP-GRL_31415#List_of_parts_and_link_to_my_suppliers

For quick reference, the radio I am using is 'Evaluation Board for Si4703 FM Tuner' from SparkFun: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10663

I hope this helps!

Greetings,

P.S. don't worry about your english, it seems fine to me ;)
 
Nice work, I'm going to keep an eye on this :)

I'm trying to build a working Pip-Boy too - doing this is certainly teaching me a lot, and I'm buying a lot of new components!


I'm doing the UI with Python on a Raspberry Pi, after I'd seen the version you'd linked to earlier - I'm coding it from scratch, but his code showed me what was possible, I'd not actually written my own Python before...

I'm currently just using my Teensy 3 to control the LEDs and work as a keyboard/mouse - that way I can use a keyboard/mouse to replace the controls when debugging.

Sadly I've been having difficulties getting the Teensy to work well as a keyboard on the Pi - it isn't recognised when the Pi is first powered on, and it sometimes misses characters, or repeats them :(

Did you manage to get that Geiger tube working?
I've still not decided if I'm going to include one of those...
They're not cheap, and I'm worried about building a wearable high-voltage device :p

I might actually be able to use my Raspberry Pi's camera as a (highly inaccurate) radiation-meter!

Here's another component for you to try playing with: Micro stepper motors
I've ordered some of those, and I'm hoping I can use one to control the needle on my Pip-Boy's radiation-gauge - it looks like it should be small enough.

I was thinking I might actually make it show Wifi strength instead of the dangerous kind of radiation :)
 
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Hello, I know this project is from 2013 but was wondering if any progress has been made? I am collecting the components to start a Pip-Boy build. I currently have a Teensy 3.6 and I'm waiting for my lcd screen to come in.
 
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