Make your own RC Winch Controller

Want to control you 1/10 scale winch from your 3-channel RC system? Below you can find instructions to build the necessary controller!

DIY RC Light Controller update

It has been a while since be blogged about our Light controller. In the meantime we have equipped more than ten cars with our custom electronics.

In this post we describe the changes we did along the way to the electronics and the firmware.

Tamiya TEU-104BK mod for LiPo cut-off

Many Tamiya kits available on sale today still come with the TEU-104BK ESC. This ESC is perfectly fine for running brushed motors, but does not contain a BEC and its low voltage cut-off is too low for LiPo batteries.

The missing BEC is easily dealt with: either use "high voltage" compatible servo and receiver, or a cheap external BEC.

Fortunately it is also easy to modify the ESC to have a LiPo compatible voltage cut-off -- assuming you are able to solder a tiny surface-mount resistor.

DIY RC Light controller pre-processor miniaturization

This blog post is a follow-up on "Pre-processor for the DIY RC Light controller"

It did not take long until it became necessary to shrink down the pre-processor for my DIY light controller.

The HobbyKing HK-GT2R receiver is significantly smaller than the HKR3000 the LANE Boys are using, especially in height. No way an old-fashioned micro-controller in a DIP (Dual Inline Plastic) package can fit in there!

We need to solve this...

Pre-processor for the DIY RC Light controller

For my Tamiya XR311 I needed one of my DIY RC Light Controllers. If you are not familiar with it, please refer to my blog post: DIY car light controller for 3-channel RC

The XR311 is a small car and does not have any lights attached to the chassis, only to the body. So there was no need to have a full blown light controller on the chassis like in our Dingo, but I still wanted the convenience of having only a single servo extension wire between the chassis and body.

The HobbyKing HK-310 radio system I am using does unfortunately not have a PPM output on the signal pin of the battery connector as some receivers do, so this route was out of the question.

So I came up with the following solution: use a stripped down light controller in the chassis, serving as kind of pre-processor for the steering, throttle and Channel 3 signals. Since only one chip is needed for this function, why not add it directly into the receiver?

DIY car light controller for 3-channel RC

Light systems for RC cars are available for relatively little money. But for our Dingo I wanted something custom, something special. So I made my own.

The goal was to be able to control the lights from a simple 3-channel RC car radio controller, such as the HobbyKing HK-310 or the FlySky GT3B -- both of which we own.

The following functions have been implemented:

• Parking, Low-beam, Fog lamps and High-beam can be switched on/off using CH3
• Brake and Reverse lights are automatically controlled by monitoring the throttle channel
• Indicators only come on when you want to. You have to stay in neutral for 1 seconds, then hold the steering left/right for one second before they engage. This way normal driving does not trigger the indicators for more realism.
• Hazard lights can be switched on/off using CH3
• Programmable servo output designed to drive a steering wheel or a figures head

This video shows the functionality of the light controller: