computer contol

[Tindall]

Hello,
I am wonder if there are bords and software out tehre that i can use to raido contol my robot rc car ect by using my computer as the transmiter? I want something with a deceent range, and have it around 50 to 100 dollers? has any1 ever heard of anything like this?

[chessman]

You could tap into the connections of the pots to the RC transmitter and connect it to a Digital to Analog converter from the parallel or serial port

[ljbeng]

Check out www.linxtechnologies.com<p>They have nifty little chips that will send serial data short distances with few components. You will have to use some Maxim chips to convert pc serial port voltages to TTL levels.

[haklesup]

A lot depends on the type of control your RC car needs. Most cheap toys are simply 4 channel on-off type transmitters. The right, left, forward and reverse channels are either on or off. this is the easier case since all you need to do is use an interface (your choice, USB, Serial, Parallel) which gives you an 4b or more port. <p>By writing code to toggle one bit of that port at a time you can use the bit to power a transistor or relay and use that signal to interface to the original switches in the transmitter (unless you care to recreate that as well).<p>USB is a good choice now because there are many modules you can buy that come with driver software and a header to connect to an 8b or 16b port. Also with USB, you can power the transmitter from the port and eliminate the battery it probably needs. You should be able to choose between VB or C++ to write your code (or any other language that supports windows API).<p>If your RC car needs analog control (like proportional steering or continuously variable speed control) it gets a lot more complicated because now you need to get a D/A between the port and the transmitter and the code you need to write will be more complex.

[Tindall]

WEll, This My car a a Expansive one with Digital portortion (it has a a nitro engin and cost $500) We have a aold Apple Computer in out computer, could i take that over a wireless network and use that to control somting?

[chessman]

What radio do you have for your car? Also...what type of car is it? I'm just curious since I'm into R/C cars and all....

[Will]

At one time, some years ago you could buy remore car controls, complete with car and two way radio for something like $ 30 - $50 for from radio Shack, I'm sure they were quite crude and I have no idea how they worked but I'm sure you could take one to pieces and figure out how to adapt it to your car. I doubt that you could do it any cheaper than that by any other method. I know you could buy such devices because I bought two or three of them for a project which never came to fruition - God knows where they are now.
Will