Control An R/c Car From Your Pc

parralel port rc car

“This program was written so i could control a tiny $10 remote control car (and to procrastinate homework).  The lpt port pins (6,7,8,9) are used to control Forward, Reverse, Left and Right in the controller. In addition to this program, I had to build a simple circuit to bypass the buttons on the remote control.”

those r/c cars are just chock full of hackability.

19 thoughts on “Control An R/c Car From Your Pc

  1. The diagrams not a joke, but it should include way more info.. The rest of the info is in the text page. So youll just have to figure out what to do yourself…

    I found it funny that he mentions a “NPN capacitor” though :P

  2. nice job!!!
    I know you probably don’t feel like it, but you could use the directX sdk and have the car controlled by a joystick, but then I guess you could also just use the included controller. You could also log the keys you press and have the car follow the same path everytime, this is a really good hack, and I keep on thinking of more uses for it. once again, good jorb!

  3. Quite a nice hack, if a little messily implemented.

    Rather than gutting the remote controller, I’d fit it with a socket for attaching a cable for PC control — you could use a DB9, and (assuming a common ground for all the controller’s buttons) even wire it so that you could use an old Atari type joystick to control the car, in addition to the original controller and a PC (stick the electronics for PC control in the DB25 housing).

  4. When I try to compile in C++ it gives me an error for #include , says theres no such file and it also doesnt like the headers with the front slash in it, #include , #include

    Why would this be?

  5. haha,
    this is my project. I didn’t post this, but i see about 5000 of you have looked at it. Makes me wish i had washed my hands first. Glad you understand the pimpness of the diagram. I have an instruction writeup if anyone needs more help. The program is only compilable/runnable as root because you reprogramn the shell and have direct access to the LPT port. Yeah. Anyways back to homework. Check out the sweet race car i’m helping to build http://www.uvic.fsae.ca Yeah basically, mech rulez.

    Givr hard,
    SHaun Bowman

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