I did find an old rc-car and I wanted to control it by an Arduino.
I have a motorshield on it and the back wheels are running perfectly (forward and backward).
The only problem is the steering mechanism which I can't get to work. I can make it go to the right, but not to the left. I am using the 'motor.run(forward)' command for this. So, I thought, to make it steer to the left, I use backward, but that doesn't work at all.
I think it needs a +1 for right (speed+255) and -1 for left. But how do I get a negative value using the motorshield?
A picture of the motor for the steering mechanism can be seen in the attachment
The steering may be a servo. It would need a pulse output to set the position.
Or it may be just a simple DC motor. Unhook both wires from the original car wiring and attach them to your motor shield. Then forwards and backwards should work.
I am using the original wires (connected to the motor) and I only can get it it work in one direction.
As you can see in the attachment, it doesn't seem to be a servo
I see a lot of copper in the photo. It doesn't tell me much about where those wires go or how you have it hooked up.
A long time ago when electronics was really expensive, remote control cars weren't even radio controlled. You had to chase them around with a wired controller. Some of those had really ingenious methods to save one transistor in the circuit - the steering motor only went one direction and would flick left first before it went right. You don't have any strange mechanical mechanism on the output side of the motor?
MorganS:
I see a lot of copper in the photo. It doesn't tell me much about where those wires go or how you have it hooked up.
A long time ago when electronics was really expensive, remote control cars weren't even radio controlled. You had to chase them around with a wired controller. Some of those had really ingenious methods to save one transistor in the circuit - the steering motor only went one direction and would flick left first before it went right. You don't have any strange mechanical mechanism on the output side of the motor?
Everything looks pretty normal. No fancy or weird mechanisms.
I will replace this part by a servo
As attachment you can see the steering mechanism.
On the left you see the thing that goes to the wheels. There are 2 magnets in it, one for steering right and the other for left. These magnets are 'activated' by the coils on the right. So, or left or right. Nothing inbetween.
Is there a possibility to control the coils by the arduino in such a way that or left or right is active?
