This hack’s old as dirt to be sure, but new to us and a great accomplishment. The plane above, which is meant to fly without an operator, has been given RC control thanks to parts from that little car. The transmitter and receiver pair are the obvious transplant, but how do you add steering to a $7 plane that wasn’t manufactured to have that feature? The tail was cut and reconnected with mylar hinges to turn it into a rudder. A rare earth magnet and a coil are also thrown into the mix to provide movement. Basically this is a simple solenoid where the coil pushes against the magnet when energized, actuating the rudder. This in combination with an upgraded motor allows for both speed control and yaw. It doesn’t look like you can control roll and pitch but what more can you really expect?
This would be a nice first step on that path to building an epic flying camera rig.
[Thanks Rob]
nice, i wonder if it can be done easier though, maybe just with weights attached to the servo somehow
wish there was video
Heads up folks – at least in Canada there are *specific and different* freq’s assigned for air vs land RC vehicles.
So transplanting from one to the other is potentially very, very improper.
Awesome hack. Those little cars are pretty sweet too.
Great hack!
There’s so much you can do with those little $5 charge-a-car controller things.
Seconding Required’s issue, the aircraft frequency is kept separate to prevent ground vehicles from bringing down a possibly sizable nitro-powered onto a spectator.
-Debbie Downer
ok whos making a heli next .
Lol, this article was posted before almost 5 years ago:
http://hackaday.com/2005/01/22/radio-controlled-airplane-from-a-micro-rc-car/
That makes two dupes from ages ago this week. We’re slipping.
The site and its links mention that you should use only freqs legal in your country. For the US that would be 27 MHz and 49 MHz, which may be used for any R/C vehicle including planes or cars. They also mention removing the “crippling caps” (added to allow multiple races in the same room) to extend range so you can fly the plane in a small park.
im a total rookie,so im goin to try “air hog wing flier” with just the steering survo and controler from rc car for tail rudder.so i bought the plane $15 Can. “rc car free.” i’ll let u know if this basic than the bare bones works.let me know on here if anyone has done this?
Hack a 27 and a 49 transmitter into a single control box and use both receivers. That’ll get you four channels that each do two direction control.
Use the two steering outputs for rudder and elevator and the second motor output for ailerons.
Could get two speed motor control by running reverse through a polarity switching and voltage reducing circuit so hitting reverse slows the prop down just enough to put the plane into a powered glide while forward does full power for climbing.
Depending on the transmitters and receivers, it might be possible to add more functions by pressing both forward and reverse or left and right at the same time. Depends on whether or not the transmitter will send both signals together and what the receiver does.
Has anyone ever tried this? Assume a simple connection to the single antenna from respective coils on both transmitter and receivers is all that’s needed, that would resolve a bunch of two channel compromises, but introduces (possibly) a bigger one for a flying model: battery requirements on the receiver side. This might NOT be a big deal since the controllers are not proportional but more on/off. Other issue: might still be interference despite separate signals. If anyone has tried this, or has better subject knowledge, please post. Otherwise, there’s a bunch of thrift shops in my area that are terrific RC car “bone yards” I can scavenge from, and may try this out on my own.
realy nice realy realy nice thanks i live in romania and it is realy hard to find parts and its freakin expensive to buy a plane it is like 200 300 dollars here a simple 4 channel rc so if anyone finds a weay to build an airplane like shown here please contact me on my facebook page Nemes Button pls help i realy want to fly
Building an RC Plane as a project is one of the most wonderful DIY things you can do as a hobby. It requires a great deal of patience to accomplish a fully-functional unit. This article helped me build one, and in another helpful article as well: http://mydronelab.com/blog/how-to-make-an-rc-plane.html
This is a very nifty project! I love to do it and even coming from a six year old article, the information is still relevant. I really think I can do something like this soon. Aside from this inspiring article, I also found another piece worth checking out if you want to build your own RC plane: http://mydronelab.com/blog/how-to-make-an-rc-plane.html
Ok I know I’m probably late.. however I’m still commenting. So a rc car has a front axle that is able to move enabling the turning feature. So if you don’t mind having a larger body airplane you can keep the motherboard and wiring then you can somehow hook up the steering to the wing flaps enabling it to turn.