Best way to control a remote control car

Community General Discussions
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I am currently building a car that works with skid steering (4wd) with 4 seperate micrometal gear motors. I have them connected to an arduino uno for now, but in the future i would like to transition to a smaller arduino ( mini pro, teensy, etc). I am using two DRV8835 Dual Motor Driver Carrier in order for each driver to control two motors seperately. I am controlling these motors through PWM.

My constraints and considerations are:

  • The car must be super light weight, so I would prefer a smaller device
  • The remote control must be ergonomic for user
  • I would prefer a joy stick type remote in order to variate the speed transitionally.
  • NOT concerned with long range, only about 10-20 ft
  • Low power consumption is a must. 
  • I would also like it control a Brushless DC motor in the future, but not varying speed, just on and off. 

Thank you for the help!!

2

I expect to be working on a

I expect to be working on a remote control system myself soon.  So, I have done a little investigation, but not settled on a solution yet. In my application I need more control than what a thumb joystick will provide. So, I may have to just build my joystick system from scratch. Robot shop has a few choices for the more typical thumb-type joysticks in a package that can be used wirelessly. 

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Wireless Gamepad for Arduino V2, Product Code : RB-Dfr-223
• Supports Xbee, Bluetooth, RF and Wifi via an Xbee socket
• Supplies two analog sticks, one reset button and 16 programmable buttons
It is actually an arduino itself, so you can program it as you wish.
But, it is fairly expensive at $57, plus you have to pay to buy the actual wireless module.

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A much cheaper option is their
Lynxmotion PS2 Controller V4, Product Code : RB-Lyn-899
at $24, and  includes the receiver.  But, the receiver is not a tiny one.  So, that may rule that one out.

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I purchased the joystick shield from Funduino, and it has a socket to connect a wireless module.  But, it really is not designed to be a good joystick controller,  since you really are handling a circuit board in your hands.  It was also not very good in regards to documentation.

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I know some of the small arduinos support a wireless module, or have enough pins to add one. The same one could be used for the transmitter, and you might be able to mount it internally to any wired controller.  But, I really don’t know if you would have enough space.

You mentioned the Tiny Arduino by TinyCircuts.  They have both wireless shields and motor controllers. The same setup could be used in the remote control.

-Joe

3

Radio control

I have used the following radios:

 

  1. ESP8266
  2. NRF24L01
  3. LowPowerLab Moteino

Prefer the NRF (probably because I have the most experience with it) but the Moteino was by far the easiest to get started with and the range is very nice.

 

 

4

i love using remote control

i love using remote control cars, however is there a best of controlling house robots as well?