There are a lot of cheap quadcopter kits out there, sold ready to fly with a transmitter and battery for right around $50 USD. One of the more popular of these micro quads is the V2X2 series. They are, unfortunately not compatible with any other radio protocol out there, but [Alexandre] has managed to use the transmitter included with his V202 quad to send data to an Arduino.
Like most quads, the transmitter that came with [Alexandre]’s V202 operates on 2.4GHz. Listening in on that band required a little bit of hardware, in this case a nordic Semiconductors nRF24L01p. Attached to this chip is a regular ‘ol Arduino running a bit of code that includes [Alexandre]’s V202 library.
Right now, the build can detect if the quad is bound or not, and read the current position of the throttle, yaw, pitch, and roll, as well as all the associated trims. It’s just the beginnings of [Alexandre]’s project, but his eventual goal is to build an Arduino bot based on the code, complete with RC servos. Not bad for a transmitter that will be utterly useless when the microquad eventually breaks.
Hi.Working extensively on the same project and made some Arduino libraries:
Hackaday:
http://hackaday.com/2013/11/19/hacking-a-cheap-toy-quadcopter-to-work-with-arduino/
Flying the quad (slightly different type but I started on this one):
http://dzlsevilgeniuslair.blogspot.dk/2013/11/more-toy-quadcopter-hacking.html
Using the handset:
http://dzlsevilgeniuslair.blogspot.dk/2014/02/easy-to-use-arduino-wireless-library.html
On github:
https://github.com/dzlonline/HCDlib.git
https://github.com/dzlonline/easycom.git
I believe the title should more correctly read “Reading some cheap 2.4 GHz R/C transmitters with an Arduino.”
I am almost certain that this isn’t going to work with any of the “real” R/C transmitters.
And why do you think that? The protocols may be different, so the software decoding would need to change, but the hardware would most likely work just fine.
I say that because none of the real r/c remotes are based on the nrf24 hardware and I am almost certain no amount of hacking will get nrf24 to talk with them.
It won’t connect to the “real” RC transmitter but that’s not the point. The point is to re-use those cheap toy transmitters for other purposes. Take it from someone who has 60 of them left over from a project :), I use them all the time.
If ancient romans had arduino we’d be raping the moon every evening.
Effectively, the aim of this project is to make a 2.4G receiver for the v202 protocol. I find this is more convenient to reuse a cheap radio than to make one. I will adapt this arduino code to use this transmitter with a multiwii quadcopter board. It avoids to plug a real receiver and a little quadcopter can lose significant weight. The nrf24l01 and the transmitter are very cheap, I want to us them in my all DIY remote controlled project.
I would like to apologize because of my bad english and my accent on youtube. I work on it :) But I wanted to share what I have made.
Thank you !
Hi, I am trying to listen and learn a 2.4g remote protocol. It’s a remote to switch on off and dim my lights.
Could you share how you listen/sniff the 2.4g rf using nrf24i01?
Thanks
I am in need of the same information to control my 2.4Ghz RGB lightbulbs.
Hey guys! New to all of this and I have an old “Air Hogs” remote I’m tearing apart right now for the switches and LEDs. Just wondering if I can use this thing for a possible RC robot I would like to learn to build. Is it worth it to save it? Or just take the LEDs and switches? I have no idea how transmitters and receivers work, I know they have to be on the same frequency but not sure if I can actually use it with another machine so easily. I don’t have the receiver because I don’t have whatever toy this came from.
Not a lot of detail I know, but it was just given to me and I just took it apart. Got into electronics and robotics like a week ago, so I’m just trying to see what I can do with some motors, switches, LEDS and basic components I salvage from random old crap around the house. So far I have an old dell desktop, this transmitter, a DVD player, a microwave, this coffee grinder thing with a gnarly motor, and a couple other small motors.
Not too sure about this arduino stuff as I cannot code yet, but I am also looking for someone to discuss my idea for an AI with, I believe it may be revolutionary for AI and technology in general.
Great project. I made it with my Ares Advantage 4ch 2.4GHz FHSS Radio. I used the receiver from a board that belonged to that quad desoldered it from the board and soldered some wires and connected to the arduino on SPI and I had a working radio reading through my Serial Monitor. One thing I did was on the code itself on setup you have these lines:
// Set CS pin to D8 and CE pin to D7
wireless.setPins(7,8);
They were set as setPins(8,7), when I connected mine I did my CE on pin D7 and my CSN or CS on pin D8. On the board for my quad it had it listed as CSN and remember VDD to 3.3V not 5V. I was on the quest to find a good program to try and control anything I wanted on 2.4GHz and found some but ended up having lots of trouble to get to work and sometimes it did not work at all. This is super easy and works. Thanks and keep up the good work.