PWM Throttle Signal over Wireless

Other Hardware Robotics
1

Hello,
I have a JetCat P80-SE hobby jet engine that I have strapped to a bicycle. Over the years, I have tinkered with the setup to make it faster, cleaner, safer, but one thing that I've always kicked down the road is getting a proper throttle rather than just setting it to max thrust and riding for the 3-5 minutes of gas that I've got.

What I would like to do is create a small enclosure on the handlebars with some sort of micro-controller and either a variable resistor or this little servo controller that I have. The controller would read the resistance value or the PWM signal and transmit that value wirelessly to a second controller attached to the engine computer. That second controller needs to send a PWM signal to the computer in order for it to work.

I was looking at buying 2x NANO ESP32 models to do this. It's been a while since I've worked with micro-controllers. I remember working with UART and Zigbee stuff in college, but it looks like these controllers have Bluetooth and WiFi. That seems intimidating but also seems fun to work with.

Basically what I'm asking is for a sanity check: am I over-complicating things? Is my plan sound? Do you have any suggestions?

2

Without being familiar with the engine's throttle's physical requirements I would suggest:

  1. Start without the wireless. It will be a lot easier and if all works out you could add wireless later.
  2. First thing you do is to figure how to use a RC hobby servo to control your engine. This is mostly an mechanical exercise.
  3. Add in the Arduino control for the servo. This is really simple and there a many many published programs to do just what you are asking for.
3
  1. Good point! Will absolutely do this.
  2. So that's where the computer comes into play. All it needs is a PWM duty cycle, and you can define the duty cycles that produce maximum and minimum thrust, i.e. it works just fine if your signal goes from 5% to 95% or 30% go 60% as long as you go into the computer settings and define that. In short, we can black box the engine itself. My input is a varistor or variable PWM device, my output is a PWM duty cycle, and I just need a way to connect the two over 4-5 feet of cable or a wireless signal.
    I glossed over the fact that I have accomplished this using the variable resistor and an Arduino UNO directly plugged into the computer. I have also used that little servo I was talking about and it works fine too, but I don't know of a non-sketchy way to wire it from the handles to the back of the bike.
  3. Like stated in 2, I have done this, but now I'm trying to transmit over some sort of long cable (can I just use a CAT6 cable?) or wireless.
4

You can use any stranded wire. I suggest you follow the rear brake cable back to your engine.

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