I found myself a new Arduino project – an automated car!
Well how to go about this. My best approach was to get a cheap RC toy car from the local toy store, not a real RC car from a hobby store, but one of those really cheap ones. I will probably scrap the electronics any way. So I found my self the proud owner of 4×4 wheel cool truck, with rubber wheels large enough to driver both outdoor and over my doorsteps.
Next was to get the Truck disassembled and find out if any of the electronics could be reused. When opened I could see from the layout of the components that it was build around an H-Bridge with four transistors for the motor control. This means that it can only control the direction of the motor (Forward / Backwards) and not the speed – not ideal.
Also the wheel turning was based on the same Principe with only all the way to the left or all the way to the right (a small motor with gearing controlled this).
So OUT WITH THE CRAPPY ELECTRONICS!
Then how to control it with the Arduino?
Well one way is to use servos and power controls (acts like servos) and the Servo lib.
And I accidentally had this lying from an old helicopter I crashed some years ago – newer throw anything away right! 🙂
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We have the disassembled truck with body and covers etc.
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We have a couple of mini servos from the old chopper
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And the speed regulator from the same servo
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A Charger (not shown) and a battery pack
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AND off course not to forget the Arduino Duomille board
That’s all for tonight, I will continue with the assembling this weekend if I get the time.
AND naturally keep you posted!