Hello All and Happy New Year!
I’m new to this group and was hoping to pick some brains.
First, a little background on me, I’m 51 years old and have been an avid RC builder/fabricator for over 35 years. Most of which has been aircraft, helicopters and now drones.
I was asked for assistance in producing/fabricating 3 items for my son’s high school production of Into the woods; A cow puppet, a 16’ holographic giant (Im a media producer by trade), and an RC hen. Now the Hen is only in one scene, where it runs across the stage in front of an ensuing actor. Rather than just stick a hen on top of a cheap RC car, I thought it would be awesome if the hen’s legs moved as it “ran” across the stage…so it thought perhaps a track system like a tank or bulldozer…
Where I need help is in selecting the least expensive track robot and motor controller that I can connect to a standard RC RX ( I have several TX and RX systems in my “junk drawer/closet” to choose from" it would need to move quickly (8-12mph) and handle a little weight…(5lbs)
I’ve attached a rough jpeg to give an idea on what i was thinking.
It would be a huge help if anyone could assist with suggesting the base robot kit and motor-controller. It would be awesome if there was a controller for tracks that allowed for the controls to be forward/back and left/right, more like a car than a tank. That would make it much easier for the operator to navigate during a live show.
Thanks for any help/input you can provide.
Have an amazing day!
Anthony
Hi Anthony,
If you need something R/C compatible, we have a selection of R/C DC Controllers.
You can either try to setup a mixing for your “tank” control or use something that already have this function built-in like the Sabertooth Dual 5A R/C.
There are a few low cost tracked robot available HERE sorted by price.
Hello Eric!
So I took your advice and got the sabertooth controller to allow me to control the robot via a traditional RC receiver. I fabricated functioning leg mechanics and today moved on to connecting 2 Hitech 311 servos to control nod and head turn.
The radio has no mixing enabled and yet the servos go haywire when I engage the motors. Any suggestions? RF cokes? on what?
Make sure you don’t power your Servos out of the 5V regulator present on the Sabertooth.
This is only able to provide current for the Transmitter (R/C). If you power servos, you have to isolate the 5V between your Sabertooth and the Receiver and power the Servo/Receiver from an outside 5V source.
OK, so i’ll install a separate BEC coming off the 2S lipo that currently powers the sabertooth, then do I just pull the + pins on each of the 3 servo leads coming from the sabertooth?
funny thing is the problem exists with my Fly Sky FS-T6 radio and RX. For giggles I pulled my Airtronics SD-10G radio and 92106 RX from one of my drones and installed it. It had no crosstalk chatter?
Could it just be the cheap electronics in the Fly Sky unit? (I went with this radio because its for a HS prop and I didn’t want to put a high-end radio in untrained hands)
thanks for your input
Exactly, you need to isolate (remove) the positive from from the Sabertooth cables.
Regarding cross-talk it’s not possible if you are on 2.4ghz (most likely) since each transmitter / receiver lock on a free frequency at power-up.
FlySky are proven system i should perform perfectly, i would not doubt that.
Make sure your power source is able do deliver enough current for all of your electronics.
Thanks Eric,
’
I isolated the pos wires and used a BEC and 2S 35C lipo to power the RX and servos. Same results. I even ordered a replacement FlySky unit and it behaved the same way, regardless of what channels I plugged the servos into.
I replaced the flysky RX and TX with my Airtronics RX and TX and all behave as expected… so much fro flysky…not impressed and I wasted a ton of build time trouble shooting the simple electronic portion of the build.
Not sure what would be the issue then, they are proven systems.
Have you contacted FlySky regarding this issue ? Could be the Transmitter since it behaved the same with a new Receiver.
