im looking to control my picaxe robot wirelessly by either my computer or remote control..
what is the cheapest method and how would i go about doing it?
thanks muchly
Probably the cheapest and
Probably the cheapest and easiest way is using 433 MHz transmitter/receiver modules, like these from Jaycar:
http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=ZW3100&keywords=433+MHz&form=KEYWORD
http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=ZW3102&keywords=433+MHz&form=KEYWORD
There are variations of these to be bought from many retailers.
You send data serially to the transmitter (picaxe serout command) and read it in from the receiver (picaxe serin command).
Have you thought of XBee’s?
XBee’s are about $19 USD and can be used in a USB adapter to connect to a computer. What you get is a device that can send and recieve for $19 with full error checking. You can even program them to read digital and analog sensors WITHOUT using any microcontroller (but where is the fun in that). You can use a Terminal program (like Hyperterminal in Windows XP) on the computer to send data to the picaxe and have it watch for serial traffic to process. Plus you can have the picaxe send data back to the computer for display in the Terminal program.
There is a good article on XBee’s here