The Advanced Display Companion 2030 - Halloween PIP-BOY DIY Prop from AutomationDirect

Hey AutomationDirect fans! I’m Caleb and I’m Greg. And we’re here to show off our latest build for Halloween! It’s spooky season around here, so we thought we’d build something cool with one of our Cm5 touch panels. So check this out! This might look familiar to some fans, but we won’t mention any names to avoid any legal fallout - this is our version, the AutomationDirect Automatic display companion 2030, or A D C 2030. Now, the original files, found online at ytech3d.com, were designed to house a smartphone, and we've actually included a link in the description. We had to modify one of these to fit one of these touch panels. This is a Cmore Cm5-T4w touch panel that you can buy online right now! The Cm5 is our most advanced HMI ever. It has built-in drivers for all major PLCs, supports MQTT and ethernet IP, comes in a wide range of sizes to suit your needs and has free downloadable software to easily program it. Web browsing and email features are also built-in. All these features in a budget-friendly package is hard to beat. So we put it to the test to build this device. That’s right, Caleb. We wanted to showcase some of the graphics capabilities of the HMI, but also the internal logic capabilities. This HMI is connected only to a rechargeable battery, so as far as performance goes, it’s on its own – no PLC or controller is pulling the strings. The C-Mores event manager database allows the HMI to make decisions and take actions on its own. We used the event manager to set up timers, counters, and math functions to make the Automatic Display Companion truly automatic. One of the funny things we built in is a dynamic health system. If you’re traversing the wasteland, you’ll sustain an injury here and there. If you have the ADC on long enough, you’ll lose some hit points now and then. When that happens, head to the Inventory screen and use the Medkit! Again, this is all handled by the HMI itself. As for the screens – it’s not as easy as you might think to make the sharp, clear display of a CM5 look like a clunky retro monochrome screen. It took a little work to introduce the simulated CRT lines, static, and screen-switching glitches that you see here. Without getting into a lot of detail, let me just tell you that the CMore’s custom bitmap animation capabilities were the key here, along with the internal logic of the event manager. We’ll make the program available for anyone who wants it, and you can look at what we’ve done. If you’d like to build one of these on your own, we’ve included the link to the original files as well as the few we’ve modified. We couldn’t have done this without help! So we want to say thank you to everyone who helped with the design and even the smaller details! This was a fun project for us and if you liked it, too, let us know! Be sure to like and subscribe to the channel for all the latest news and products from AutomationDirect. But most importantly, Happy Halloween!