The RC Car Hack - Part 1 - Introduction

The RC Car Hack

Summary

This is a tutorial following my implementation of the RC Car Hack.

Project  Goal

The goal of this tutorial is to give a little guidance to others who are interested in the RC Car Hack.  What is the RC Car Hack?  First off, I didn’t name it but I try to better define it for you (based on my experience).  


The process of modifying the hardware, software, and/or the physical design of an existing remote control (RC) car for your own purposes is known as “The RC Car Hack”. 


     I'm sure there are a lot of different definitions but that's my definition.  It could have been called the RC Carbot, a Bluetooth Bot, Arduino robot, etc but I guess those names never stuck for something like this.  In reality, RC Car Hack is the only name I found it under when searching which is probably how you found this. 

Tutorial Contents

     This tutorial is broken into many parts/posts as there is plenty of content to show.

1. Introduction -> (You are here.)
2. Description of items/stuff used
3. Getting inside your RC Car
4. More soon...
5. Code used (Reference)

Before you start...  
This tutorial involves using basic C#, Bluetooth, and Arduino. If you know some java or C# and have uploaded a sketch to an Arduino before, this should be fairly straightforward.  Use or take any code listed in this tutorial.  I hope you learn as much as I did and do something fun with it. 

Comments/Questions?
I'm always wanting to improve the quality of the content here.  If you have questions, want to see a better explanation, a better picture, let me know.  Thanks - Sean

The RC Car Hack - Part 3 - Getting Inside your RC Car

The RC Car Hack - Part 3
Getting Inside Your RC Car


Summary

Identify the important parts of your RC Car and get rid of the rest.

Tutorial Contents

     This tutorial is broken into many parts/posts as there is plenty of content to show.

1. Introduction
2. Description of items/stuff used
3. Getting inside your RC Car
4. More soon...
5. Code used (Reference)

Get inside your RC car

Gut it out – The first thing I did was open my car up.  I found the board that everything is attached to and cut it out.  (There are transistors you can salvage from the old board and use to control the motors but it’s complicated.  To save you time from my experience, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have experience with circuits.)

Typical case– I don’t know what your RC car looks like but most RC cars are the same.  In many RC cars, the front two wheels are controlled by a servo and the back two are controlled by a motor.  In the above stated case, the front wheels control the direction of the car and the back two wheels will push or pull the car.

This case – The car used in this project does not have a servo.  It has two motors.  One motor for wheels on the left side and one motor for the wheels on the right side.    If your car is the typical case, you will need 
to look at how to control a servo, it’s not hard just google it.





Comments/Questions?
I'm always wanting to improve the quality of the content here.  If you have questions, want to see a better explanation, a better picture, let me know.  Thanks - Sean

The RC Car Hack - Part 2 - Stuff Used

The RC Car Hack - Part 2
Description of Items Used


Summary

This following is a description of all the items used in this RC Car Hack tutorial.

Tutorial Contents

     This tutorial is broken into many parts/posts as there is plenty of content to show.

1. Introduction
2. Description of items/stuff used
3. Getting inside your RC Car
4. More soon...
5. Code used (Reference)

Stuff used

RC car

Description – There are plenty of RC Cars to be found.  The one for this project was found at Goodwill for $1.99.  For this project, we are only using toy RC cars like the ones found at Wal-mart for 20 – 40 dollars.  Unless you really want to, I do not recommend spending any money on the RC car.  Ask family or go find a garage sale.  Finding RC cars slightly damaged and/or without the remote control make them worth less (to others) but definitely not worthless (to us).

Arduino Duemilanove

Description – This project uses the Arduino Duemilanove to control the RC car.  An Arduino is very inexpensive, versatile, and fun.  It can be reused for any project in your imagination.  If you have never used an Arduino before, it is very easy to learn and great community support.  The Arduino portion of this project relied on the Arduino community.

Adafruit Motor Shield

Description – The motor shield will make motor control very easy for us.  It goes above the arduino and is connection by stackable pins.  Although there are other ways to control motors, I would highly recommend just using this motor shield.  This motor shield is inexpensive.  It will let us control motor direction (forward/reverse), speed, and we can easily add separate power.

Bluesmirf Gold Bluetooth modem

Description – I found this bluetooth modem to be great.  This bluetooth modem connects to the arduino and will let the arduino speak and listen to others.  As a general overview, the bluetooth modem (attached to the arduino) will connect to the bluetooth on my computer.

Arduino IDE

Description – This is what you will need to compile and upload the code that will go to the arduino.  It’s free.

Visual Studio

Description – If you don’t have Visual Studio 2008 or 2010, go get it.  You can get the express edition of C#.  

Bluetooth Adapter

Description – Bluetooth for your computer.  If you don’t already have one, they can be found for about $20 at many places.

Comments/Questions?
I'm always wanting to improve the quality of the content here.  If you have questions, want to see a better explanation, a better picture, let me know.  Thanks - Sean