Its always fun learning something new. Ever since we got a 2.4 GHz RC system a few years ago, I wanted to understand how these things actually work. How do they send data over the air? What components are used?
Well, in the last months we finally got around digging into it. And it turned out that it is a rather simple affair. So we built our own RC receivers.
The HobbyKing HKR3000 and XR3100 receivers along with two different versions of compatible, home-brew receivers.
A few weeks ago we bought a cheap second hand TT-01 because LANE Boys Snr. wanted to have a 10th scale touring car for relaxing in the local park. Along with the TT-01 came another box: A semi-vintage FF02 Alfa Romeo 156. The body shell had been used quite a bit and was heavily damaged. The chassis was incomplete, but in excellent condition. The front uprights were stripped where the king pin screws go in; turn buckles, servo mounts and a drive shaft were missing, but the rest of the vehicle looked like the car was never run before.
So we've set out to rebuild the car to its former glory.
Want to control you 1/10 scale winch from your 3-channel RC system? Below you can find instructions to build the necessary controller!
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.
With the body in good shape it was time to rebuild the chassis of our Tamiya M1025 Hummer. Like all Tamiya kits one begins with the differentials.
Notice something missing?
Yes, the antenna has been cleanly ripped out of this poor receiver. Time to get out the soldering iron...
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...
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?
