

Hacking a $9 Remote Control Car with Arduino - achalkley
http://forefront.io/a/hacking-9-buck-remote-controlled-car-with-arduino

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pserwylo
As somebody who is also learning electronics, I can also confirm that it is
extremely satisfying to pull apart cheap RC cars and connect them to an
Arduino.

For anybody who is interested (including the OP), there is plenty of good
tutorials around. The one at [1] explains a similar process as discussed in
this article, except it doesn't rely on a test point on the circuit. Instead,
it just talks directly to the relevant pins on the transmitters chip.
Apparently most toy cars use the same sending/receiving chip - the TX2/RX2
[2]. Indeed the one I took apart had this chip, and I can confirm that it is
relatively straightforward to wire up the Arduino as in [1].

If you search around, there are also tutorials on doing similar things to the
circuit on the car itself, rather than the transmitter. My goal is to create a
real-life Mario Kart setup by doing the following:

* Hook Arduino up to the car.

* Allow regular control of the car from the transmitter, but let the Arduino override these and control the car directly too.

* Connect IR LED and IR Receiver to Arduino on the car.

* Allow cars to shoot each other (there is an additional "turbo" input/output on the RX2/TX2 chips which is rarely used, so should be able to make that an auxiliary input which means "fire".

* If the car gets shot by another, then the Arduino will brake the car for a period of time.

This is all coming along nicely so far, I have the Arduino's firing at each
other using IR and detecting who hit them. I also have the transmitter being
controlled by an Arduino and receiving input via the serial port from my
laptop, so that you drive the car from a computer. The next step is to get the
Arduino to control the car directly, and then to let the Arduino and the
transmitter both control the car, with the Arduino taking priority if it
chooses to.

If anybody is interested, I'll do a writeup when (if) it gets completed
(enough).

[1] - [http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-controls-cheap-RC-
ca...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-controls-cheap-RC-car-
transmitter/?ALLSTEPS)

[2 (pdf)] -
[http://www.instructables.com/files/orig/FWW/CD13/GV525G0X/FW...](http://www.instructables.com/files/orig/FWW/CD13/GV525G0X/FWWCD13GV525G0X.pdf)

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bvdbijl
That sounds super cool, I'd love a write up

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noonespecial
Besides blinking an LED, this was my first electronics project as well. I used
the parallel port of a IBM PC XT to connect to the remote and turbo pascal to
program it though. Port $387, baby.

It was 1991, I had many pimples and little popularity, but when the car moved
by computer command, i felt like Thor the thunder god. Highly recommend.

~~~
achalkley
Exactly! Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
I feel like an Asgardian.

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dps
I'm just going to shamelessly plug my project which previously featured on HN,
where I did something similar and then added a camera on a smartphone to make
the cheap RC car drive itself :-)

[http://blog.davidsingleton.org/nnrccar/](http://blog.davidsingleton.org/nnrccar/)

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matiasb
Great, I'm trying to do similar stuff and implement a Wi-Vi like system for
tracking the car.

Wi-Vi:
[http://people.csail.mit.edu/fadel/wivi/index.html](http://people.csail.mit.edu/fadel/wivi/index.html)

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stephengillie
I've got an RC car that will stop before it runs into walls. Arduinos are fun!

[http://gilgamech.blogspot.com/](http://gilgamech.blogspot.com/)

~~~
matsimitsu
Hah, cool! i have done the same thing, just without the motor shield:
[http://matsimitsu.com/blog/2011/05/21/control-an-rc-car-
with...](http://matsimitsu.com/blog/2011/05/21/control-an-rc-car-with-
arduino.html)

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joshtimonen
Pretty cool.

