i had (past tense) an airplane ( the plane blew up 15 ft over the ground ) and i took it apart to get the electronics out of it, and i want the radio controlled stuff from inside so that i can use it with the arduino.
now the controller i took apart for the parts inside, like the joysticks, but i'm sure that the transmitter is still in there.
so first of all, what do i take out, how do i know what are the reciver and the transmitter, and second, how do i use them to send or recieve information to the arduino?
Interfacing with a Radio Control transmitter is not difficult if yours has a 'trainer' port' This is a connector that is used to give an instructors transmitter control when teaching people to fly.
Try a google search with the model of your transmitter and 'trainer port' to see if you can find more information.
how do i find out my type of transmitter and receiver? they are both from a plane and controller, they are not a set. and all i can guess is that the receiver is the little black thing soldered onto the planes board that has the black antenna wire sticking out of it.
there is no large identifier piece showing it's a receiver, and i don't even know where to look on the controller to find the transmitter!
is there an easier way of identifying it, because using the arduino to control wireless things would be freaken sweet! Do i have to solder out the little black piece with the antenna wire sticking out of it? and then find the other one in the controller?
Big93, it seems like you have a lot of projects on the boil and I think that interfacing with radio control is one of the more complex things you could do. It may be easer for you to get some experience with some simpler interfacing tasks first.
But, if you really want to tackle the task, you need to find out if your transmitter has a 'trainer' or 'buddy' port. If you can't find a model number or a web site with an image of your transmitter, can you take a picture with a digital camera and post it here.
lol yea, i like to keep myself busy, trying new things with the arduino to ultimitly make one big awsome project based off the arduino running it, or just complete my ultimate goal of learning more about electronics and software. I'm getting close to picking a career, and this stuff seems to be like something i could do, so i want to be sure to comprehend what everything does b4 i enter that career
and its also fun!
lol
back to the subject:
the board for another radio controll car i had lying around seems to be pretty simple, ontop there is only 2 joysticks, a crystal, 3 resistors, a capacitor, and what looks to be the transmitter.
transmitter just looks like a piece of pc board sticking vertically up, with a black dot, you can say it looks like candle wax, just to give u an idea of what it looks lie, and on the bottem of the board, theres a bunch of pins that are labeled "VDD, PC, OSC0, OSC1, R, L, GND, B, F, SO"
but for that board i only have the controller, no reciever
i got some pics for you, and ill go upload to somewhere, brb with all the photos!
Just a few notes,
the part from the remote control has a bunch of cables sticking out ( the black ones ) becuase i wanted to hook up the joystick but i had no empty pc boars around, so i just hooked up wires to the end of the joystick pins,
and the only missing things on the reciever part, is the battery, the major motor, and 2 small motors.
and the transmitter part is obviously missing a joystick and some buttons
like i said before i also have just a remote from another car, and here is the pics of that single transmitter, with no reciever, you can clearly see all the pins i talked about before! i cudent believe i cud get a shot that good of it, all thanks to the magnifier on my helping hands...
I would guess from the pictures that neither has the 'trainer' connector port that would make interfacing relatively easy. Pity, I have some code that I have used to interface with my radio control transmitter that could have helped. If you have access to an oscilloscope then you could try probing around to see if there is any kind of standard signal on either of the boards.
There is more information on the standard signals here: http://www.mp.ttu.ee/risto/rc/electronics/radio/signal.htm. I don't want to discourage you but IMHO this is somthing you may find more satisfying to tackle after gaining a little more experience with Arduino interfacing from your other projects.
thats surprising, i would have thought that the plane transmitter would have it, seeing as it was almost 100 bucks... but i guess price has nothing to do with it.
are there like cheapish rf transmitter nad reciever kits built specificly for this available on the net?
100 bucks for the transmitter, or for the whole package including the plane and all the electronics in it? If that's the package price then you shouldn't expect too much in the way of hidden extras on the transmitter.
If the transmitter has a round 5pin connector (5 pin din socket) or a 3.5mm socket (like a headphone socket, not the recharging socket), then you may still be in luck.
100 bucks for a 99 percent ready to fly plane, it was the firebird phantom, a very simple mid size plane, i'd say no bigger then the are of a small coffee table, if you get my jist...
and it included the remote. now as far as i see, the antenna is connected to a little black thingy. Since the antenna is connected to that, does that make it the transmitter?
if so, it only seems to have 1 pin connected to it, other then the antenna....
Looking at the crystal in one of your pictures, it shows this tx/rx combo works on 27MHz. Also the name of the plane says enough. This is one of the rtf packages that is very limited with regard to connecting things to it. Still, you can have a lot of fun with those packages. I think you are on your own, unless you can find a schematic of the tx.
Are you located in the US? If so, find a cheap 4 or 6 channel GWS transmitter and receiver on 72 MHz (For most of Europe, you will need 35MHz). These sets do have trainer ports and give you some nice possibilities.
thanks jds, the sets you speak of, can you link me to one? and they also offer only the tranmitter and reciever, no planes to take apart to get them, right?
since i have matching crystals, could i make my own transmitter and reciever?
You have to get something like this. Do a search for 'gws transmitter' and 'gws receiver' on eBay. Try to get a matching pair, both 6 channel or both 4 channel. Are you in the US, then any of the results on 72 MHz will do. For most of Europe, you need 35 MHz, Australia is on 36MHz.
The frequency (MHz) should match. If you buy a 6ch transmitter, you can 4- and 6 channel receivers, just as long as they both are on 72 MHz. If you buy a 6 channel receiver and a 4 channel transmitter, you will (of course) never be able to use the 2 extra channels on the receiver.
So, when buying a transmitter, think of the future. If you will be flying airplanes in the future, I suggest the 6 channel tx+rx
sorry for the double post, but i just stumbled on these things:
what about these:
could i hook up the transmitter to the arduino, and the reciever to 5 volts, and send data to the reciever?
could i controll up to 14 things, or would i need one of those shift registers, or those ic's that give you more pins on your arduino.
i'm guessing the data inputed into the reciever is raw data, no high or low, so i would need those ic's to recieve the data and iterpret the data to controll the pins connections.
but most importantly, can i use those sparkfun transmitter nad reciever with the arduino, and if so, what do i hook up to where?
EDIT:
never mind, the data sheet sais it all!
EDIT EDIT:
is it just me or does the data sheet expect 2 arduinos to be used??
or can i maybe just order another atmega168 ( might have misspelled it) ic and just tell it to receive the incoming bytes?
or can i just use a transmitter, and receiver receives raw, but understandable enough data to go right into a i/o pin multiplier ic?
