Fallout Pip-Boy 2000 Mk.I replica – Part 4: Very small details

I’ve noticed before that this build has some issues with scale, but now it’s really hitting home. Some of the details are ridiculously fiddly.

Starting with the faux vacuum tubes; Not too bad, just smaller than any real vacuum tubes would be, and even then they aren’t actually fully shown from behind the grill.

Plastic test tubes + LED + resistor + fine mesh + 3D printed base = Faux vacuum tube.
The two finished “vacuum tubes” with an earlier prototype on the right.
Installed with the LEDs lit.

The small gauge on top of the device wasn’t too bad to work with, but it is _tiny_. The numbers on the scale are 1mm tall.

The base of the gauge is a piece of 3mm thick polystyrene, browned up with some watercolours. The scale is printed on an overhead projector transparency, and the needle is a length of piano wire coloured black with a permanent marker.

A small gauge
Installed in the Pip-boy

The connectors next to the red buttons were a real pain. I originally thought I’d just use the smallest ring crimp connectors I can find, but it ended up they were way too big:

Small? Smaller.
I have no idea why RobCo left these wires on the outside of the Pip-boy, but here we are.

6 comments

  1. This build is incredible. Will you share the 3D files once you are all done? I’d love to make one as well. Amazing work definitely the best one I have seen by FAR.

    1. Thanks! I am planning on releasing the 3D files once I’m done. I don’t know how long that’ll take, as I’ve been working on other projects.

      1. Will def keep this project bookmarked. It’s amazing. I would definitely buy the 3D printed parts as like a kit or something as well if you’d ever offer it up.

    1. There are two “vacuum tubes” in the finished build, so two LEDs.
      I can’t remember the resistor value I used, but based on the photos of resistors they’re brown/black/black/orange/gold, so 100K ohm.
      How I got them to fit? The LEDs themselves basically set the scale of the “vacuum tubes”, so everything else was built around them.

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