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Finished product
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Best picture I drew
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Insides of RC car
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Circuit board located and prepping to be probed
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Circuit board successfully removed
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Wires replaced and soldered
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Testing circuit board outputs
Inspiration
The idea for my hack started with finding a remote control car in my old room at my parents house. I realized that this toy had probably not seen the light of day for over 10 years and decided I should recycle it into something new to be enjoyed over again!
What it does
My project draws pictures on an LCD screen by using the remote control and circuit board from the old RC car I found combined with an Arduino microcontroller.
How I built it
I built my project by first opening the remote control car and reverse engineering it to find the voltages and currents of its inputs to its motors when the left and right thumb sticks are pushed forward and backward. After recording the inputs I further disassembled the car and carefully removed the circuit board. Once the board was removed I unsoldered and replaced most of the wires to be able to connect to my bread board and microcontroller. I then used the remote control to communicate with my code on my Arduino through the old circuit board to draw images on the LCD.
Challenges I ran into
The first major difficulties in my project came with changing out the old wires attached to the circuit board with new ones. I had to be very careful not to damage other components on the board while unsoldering and pulling out the wires as they were also covered in hot glue. Once the wires were replaced and the safety components, diode and capacitor, were replaced I was able to remove the board from the car. Once I had probed the board and understood its outputs I had troubles interfacing it with the Arduino properly. To solve this issue I used techniques I learned in classes such as establishing a common ground between the Arduino, battery pack, circuit board and bread board as well as using voltage dividers to translate the output from the circuit board to match the 3.3 volt input required for the Arduino.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
The idea of using an old piece of electrical hardware and recycling it into something that I could and enjoy and learn from was very exciting to me. I am very happy with how it turned out and have a lot of fun drawing on the LCD screen.
What I learned
Opening the RC car was a very exciting moment of the project for me as I have never done a hardware hack involving taking something old and changing it. I felt prepared with my knowledge I've gained through the years, but of course I learned new skills along the way. I learned the importance of writing everything down when reverse engineering, different ways DC motors can be controlled and the pros and cons of using RF remote control. I also gained more experience with Arduino and reverse engineering.
What's next
If I were to continue this project I would add shape drawing functions such as squares and circles that sizes can be controlled by additional buttons added to the bread board.
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