Remote Control Needed

[James Conner]

Hello all,

I was recently given a brand new remote control car and wasn't given the remote for it. Does anyone know of a way I could find out how to build a remote for it? 

Thanks,

James

[Christopher Groskopf]

Hi James,

Are you talking about one of the high-end RC cars that have multi-channel controllers, or an off-the-shelf one from a brand store? Another way to phrase that question: does it have a modular RC receiver on the body (and just the mated controller is missing) or is it one where the receiver is built into the vehicle?

My understanding of RC is a bit limited, but I believe the remotes for high-end RC cars and planes are designed to be largely interchangeable. My quick Googling seems to indicate that when people talk about "building an RC controller" they are more likely to mean XBee or 2.4ghz, not true RC. My guess is that building a proper RC remote would be a pretty significant challenge. I haven't come across any information on the protocols involved.

As far as the low-end cars go, I would suppose they could be using any of several control mechanisms, in which case the place to start would be rip the car apart and try to identify the hardware for the receiver. From that you could probably identify what sort of transmitter you need to pair with it. Depending on what it is, reversing the protocol may be really easy. (It could just be a wireless mux/demux pair that "dumbly" applies power to the motors. Or, it might be something proprietary and crazy. It's hard to say without opening it up.

If you're set on building something (just for the sake of doing so), I suspect it would probably be more fruitful to try to reverse the wiring on the car itself and then build your own receiver/transmitter pair using Xbee or some other very well-documented standard. I built a remote for the robot my son and I built using a Wireless PS2 controller, which gets me ~60ft range, works wonderfully with Arduino and cost me less than $50 for everything.

Happy to chat more about this stuff if your interested. I've wanted to toy with one of the high-end RC cars for a while, but other projects have taken precedence.

Best,

Chris

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[James Conner]

Thanks Chris for the info! I don't know that it would be considered high end because it was part of a promotional thing. Basically, if I sit down and talk with a salesman they would give me the remote. When we met, they told me they were out of remotes!!! 

I will try to see if they can send me one and if not, I will pop it open and take a look. I would love to chat about it.