I've got an old remote control car and I want to turn into my first real
Arduino project.

The remote control car is the style with two sets of wheel on each side,
controlled by one motor, and is driven "tank style".

The RX PCB, battery system etc on the car is long broken, but the motors
are in good condition. From what I can see off the PCB, there are two
wires off the old RX PCB to each motor, so the reverse/forward was done
on the PCB by changing the direction of the current.

Each motor, currently has in series, two, what I assume to be resistors
with "204" written on them, across their contacts. Presumably this is to
lessen to whatever the PCB was throwing at them.

I want to remove the old PCB and drop and Arduino in to control the two
motors.

I'm a *complete* newbie , but I get the feeling that I don't want to
route the power directly through the Arduino.

I'm not sure exactly what to power it with. Originally it was on 7VDC
into the old PCB, but it sounds like the motors were getting less than
that. I've no idea how about ma.

Can anyone help me figure out what I want to be doing?

Pointing me at useful bits of documentation and man pages is wonderful
if I'm likely to be able to understand. :)

Cheers,

Tim

Are there any identifiable chips on the PCB?

If its anything like other RC cars I've hacked they will have a
controller chip, possibly by Newbright, that is connected to H bridges
for the motors. These are pretty easy to tap into, so you can use the
H bridges on the original board and connect them direct to the
arduino.

If you can post any good photos of the board I could suggest where you
can solder wires to control the motors.

Cheers

On 21 Jul 2012, at 14:53, Tim Dobson <li...@tdobson.net> wrote: