Making odd project - need creative ideas!!

Whiterice

New member
Ok so here it is: I'm a computer gamer and yet I love paintball; so in the great effort to combine my hobbies I'm trying to make a replica, and yet a working one, of the bomb from Counter Strike. It has to have a single line display of at least 7 characters, and a number pad that punches up on the screen. Crystalfontz seems to have the closest thing I've seen to a screen I can work with, but I need ideas on which one, how to power it, and how to make it all run in somethng you can carry across a paintball field, "arm" and then have to have the good guys "disarm" it.

This may be stretching it, but I'll be happy if it even just looks close to the thing from the game; fabricating the shell of the device is the easy part for me, it's the electronics I'm not so hot with.

Attached are a few shots of the thing I'm trying to replicate. Thanks in advance if anyone has any ideas!!

Looking for additional LCD resources? Check out our LCD blog for the latest developments in LCD technology.
 

reider

New member
Before the experts come in, I must say that image of the code screen is ,the spitting image of the external version of the 634 module(XE?), down to the colour and the shape/look too, with a bit added on at the bottom. The keypad should be easy to make, there are many keypad extensions out there. I think you`re on a winner with it, but then I`m no expert.

When you say you`re making a model, but a working one-you don`t really mean a live bomb?? :eek: Good luck.....

Reider
 

CF Tech

Administrator
Wow. That looks like fun. Is there like a count-down timer that is supposed to start when it is armed?
 

Whiterice

New member
Wow. That looks like fun. Is there like a count-down timer that is supposed to start when it is armed?
Essentially, once it's "armed" you have like 60 seconds (although in real time on a paintball field it'd probably more like 5 or 10 minutes) to enter a 7 digit code and "disarm" is. To the first reply, no it will not be a functional explosive device :)

Once I get a shell made up I'll post up pics, but I'm still wrestling around with how to make the screen and keypad functional.
 

CF Tech

Administrator
A small graphics LCD:



combined with some switches:

http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?PName?Name=401-1900-ND

put on a small PCB with a microcontroller would do the trick.

You could glue some key caps from an old PC keyboard over the tops of the switches to make them look like the photo. This is the type of thing cosmicvoid could do . . . maybe PM him and see if you can talk him into helping.

You should put a big bulb of paint (in a balloon?) and a little CO2 cartridge with a solenoid valve and a short piece of flexible tubing as a "wiggler" nozzle, so if it goes of, it would spray paint in a hemispherical volume around the bomb.
 

Heffo

New member
You could also set it for difficulty too.. say in addition to a timer.. if somone punches in the wrong code.. immediate BOOM

nothing like pressure to trip somone up :D

OH!
And as a side note.. In this day and age, be damn careful carrying it to/from your paintball events, make sure it's quite clearly marked as 'FAKE'.. nothing like explosives to get you thrown in guantanamo! (or shot by an over-zealous cop)
 
Top