I'd like to connect arduino to an existing rc car and control it with my phone/bluetooth. My goal is to build a rc self driving car (I've already made this project with the arduino car set, now I'd like to do it again with a better car). So what I also need is a camera connected to my arduino and send all the image captured to my phone via bluetooth.
I searched for a tutorial online but they looks really complicated and I don't understand what I really need.
This is a list of what I understood I need:
Mini USB Board ATmega328 5V 16MHz CH340 ATmega328P Micro Controller
L293D Motor Driver Shield (4 motor)
Arduino bluetooth adapter
Do I need something else? Do I need Arduino Uno or the ATmega328 can replace it? Can I use the servo that is already present in my rc car or should I buy a custom servo in order to send arduino commands to it? Also,do you have a good tutorial on how to connect all the cables to the arduino board?
Hard to say since we can't see the servo, but if it is a standard RC hobby servo you should be able to control it with the ATmega328. Just make sure to power it with a supply that can provide adequate current.
If you are using batteries to power the car, the ancient technology L293 is a poor choice of motor driver. Actually no matter how it is powered the L293 is a poor choice. The L293 will drop 2 to over 4 volts of your motor power supply as waste heat. Very inefficient. Pololu (among others) has a good line of modern MOSFET output drivers that are very efficient.
Thank you for your answer! The rc car is a classic 1:16 scale car that you can buy on amazon/supermarket, so as you said I'll probably need another servo.
About the Pololu motors, do I need a single or dual motor?