Power Wheels Jeep Makes An Awesome R/C Car

powerwheels-remote-control

[Will] from RevoltLab wrote in to share part one of a cool project he is working on right now, a remote-controlled mobile rocket launcher. Before you run off and call the Department of Homeland Security, he says that the launcher will be used for personal hobby rockets, which are typically considered mostly harmless.

The first part of the build is mostly concerned with obtaining a Power Wheels car and tweaking it to be driven remotely. After stripping out most of the odds and ends out of a Barbie Jeep he found via Craigslist, he added a small hobby servo under the dashboard to actuate the pedal. A larger (and much more expensive) servo was attached to the Jeep’s steering bar, allowing [Will] to easily turn the wheels with the flick of a switch.

With the mechanical bits out of the way, he installed an R/C receiver and took to the streets lawn with his creation.

The car seems to handle pretty well, and although the price of the components quickly start to add up, we’d be more than happy to spend that kind of cash for an R/C car that size!

Continue reading to watch a short video of the Jeep in action, and be sure to check Revolt Labs’ site often to follow [Will’s] progress.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Zo1ZkT5C5u0&w=470]

17 thoughts on “Power Wheels Jeep Makes An Awesome R/C Car

  1. It’s certainly nothing to call Homeland security about, but anyone doing this may want to make sure that it isn’t done anywhere that is visible to neighbors that might care or public roads. This kind of thing could still get you harassed by local cops and might get you, at least, a ticket for something like reckless behavior or some other nonsense charge. As long as you make sure no one is down-range when you fire it (don’t want to shoot anyone’s eye out) the only way I could see this being reasonably dangerous would be if the area around you has been suffering from drought conditions (forest fires suck people, and are often started by things like campfires and fireworks after long stretches of dry weather).

  2. I been wanting to turn PowerWheels into R/C. Not to launch rockets(although a very valid reason), instead it would be the base for a R/C lawn mower. When I attempt this I would like a better steering setup. So instead of using the front wheels as the turning point, I would like to use an HBridge on the back wheels.

    Onto this post, I don’t see anyone getting arrested. The only reason neighbors would get into a tizzy is because their jelly. U mad bro?

    1. There are plenty of such vehicles for kids which have a R/C override on ebay. If the kiddo goes somewhere he should not, the parent can just steer it back to where it belongs.

      In related news: where can i get huge brushless motors to make this thing go about 30km/h? :D

  3. Next step… Mount GPS a couple of kinect sensors, sonar, radar, and a couple of extra batteries and a laptop or two and set it off on its own :D
    Ps.
    Just an idea but maybe the pink should be painted over at some point (;

      1. i had/have an iphone controlled robot. i just dont have the iphone anymore :( Used touchOSC to control it and labview to recieve the network commands. guess i could write a pc app to control it now. but the iphone was better.

  4. I reckon that this is one of those projects that would benefit greatly from being continuously developed. Replace the wheels with rubber & Alloy, replace the motor with several brushless ones, add a lick of paint etc.
    Would blow mind.
    P.S Add suspension too!

      1. You can actually use the innards of the servo to control a relay. I opened up the servo, took out the motor and connected a relay to the outputs instead of the motor. Between the relay and the servo electronics I used a diode so that the relay would only activate when the servo needed to only “turn” in one direction.
        I used this for being able to change directions in a model train that was using an airplane ESC that had no reverse.

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