This collection of model vehicle hacks adds obstacle avoidance in an attempt to make them autonomous. At the front end you’ll find two PCBs which use IR approximation to monitor the road ahead. We’re not familiar with this particular use of these IR receivers (TSOP1738) which we’re used to seeing in remote control receiver applications but if recent posts are any indication we think you’ll enjoy the use of a 555 timer on each of those boards.
The rest of the hardware is pretty common, a PIC 16F628 does the thinking while an L293D h-bridge drives the motors. Alas, we didn’t find a video, or even a description of the finished project. But there are full schematics, board layout pictures, and the code for both this vehicle and a second Tank version.
[Thanks Pieter]
A link to the model vehicle hacks would be nice.
Woo! A 255 Computer Command <3
I've got one of these, but its steering motor is worn out, as is the gearbox at the back. I want to swap these for servos (full rotation at the back) and replace the control unit with an Arduino programmed to simulate the 255 Computer Commands original programming as closely as possible :)
Missing link to the cars: http://en.elektronicastynus.be/projects/33/
TSOP1738’s are great for barrier sensors & beam break ‘tripwire’ applications; you feed a 38khz square wave signal into an IR LED and it’ll trigger the TSOP1738. But during my testing I found the TSOP1738 wouldn’t continually put it’s output to low when a steady 38khz signal is fed into it, so I had to pulse the 38khz signal to the LED.
You can buy pre-made collision detection modules like the one used in the car which use the same principal; http://cgi.ebay.com/270675884639
but making your own is a nice way of learning how to deal with IR LEDs, TSOP1738 & 555 timers (or a microcontroller with a 38khz PWM output).
A video camera capable of seeing IR light is very useful when tinkering with this stuff.
Thank you for the link.