Our team needs help getting the remote control to work. we have it set up as in the picture below, except there are three PWM cables between the reciever thing and the robot controller that I took out to make the picture clearer. What do all the rest of those wires do? Do we need a separate battery for the Reciever? Any ideas on why it’s not working? Could it be something in the programming? Thanks
Allison
Remote controller? What do you mean?
ok, Let me first make sure I understand the parts your working with, it looks like a 3-channel remote control setup. yea, you can make this work, gonna take some programming, and some creativity. I’m thinking you can take the 3 pwm outputs from the receiver, and hook them into the analog imputs. your going to have to program the controlor to understand what to do with the incomming signals, like analog input 1 could be for throttle, so, when you push the control stick foward, the range increases on the edubot RI and by programming, tell the motors to increase in speed. I’ve never done this, but I think something like that would work. My reasoning is you have analog outputs, so put’em in the analog inputs, program it to understand the users input commands, and enjoy. I’m interested in seeing this work, I have a similar transmitter, and receiver unit around here somewhere, Maybe i’ll try a similar setup and see what happens. My guess is it will work.
from my experience in racing R/C cars, what you have is a 4 channel airplane radio with a reciever that has a built in ESC(electronic speed control), the 3 output 3 pin ports are for servos controling rudders and such and the 2 thick wires are for the main rotor. in my opinion, getting that module to link into the edubot is a big challenge and there are other options.
First- you probably want to invest about $40 in a 4-channel reciever(picture attatched) W/O all the built in ESC and such(the edu. controller does that for you)
Second- the radio you pictured looks like a air model, and the frequency crystals might be for air use only, in most states, it is illegal, although the cops arn’t going to check your crystals on your gear, your conscience might nag at you…you might want to buy a set of ground, 4 channel crystals(picture attatched)
Both the reciever and the crystals can be found at www towerhobbies.com
Now, to get it running, you will need to find cables that will connect the 3 pin ports in the reciever to the R\C input ports on the edu. controller.
No power needs to be run to the reciever, but you will need to program the edu. board(far from my expertice…)
Allison,
What you have should work without any problem, and without any programming, if you follow the instructions in the EDU-2004-RC Reference Guide on our Documentation web page:
http://innovationfirst.com/FIRSTRobotics/documentation.htm
Basically you should connect the three servo outputs on the bottom right corner of your receiver to the connectors labeled “R/C PWM IN” on your Mini-RC. To see what functions these inputs control by default, refer to the Mini RC 2004 Default Software Guide, also on our Documentation page.
Changing the function is a relatively simple matter of programming, which even a non-programmer can easily learn to do by following the instructions in the 2004 Programming Reference Guide.
Further information on which radio systems to use can be found in the Radio Control Selection Guide on our White Papers web page:
http://innovationfirst.com/FIRSTRobotics/white_papers.htm
It does look like you are using a model designed for use with aircraft, and to modify it to operate on the ground vehicle frequencies (as you should legally be doing) would involve sending it to the manufacturer to retune it. Once modified for ground frequency use, you would then use crystals to select the channel. Changing from air to ground frequencies is not simply a matter of swapping crystals. Your local hobby shop should be able to answer any questions you have about R/C systems.
Regards,
Innovation First, Inc.
