Project: TQi into TQ - Lots of pictures!

[krallopian]

I've been toying with zip-ties and my phone... I quite liked the quality of the videos coming from it on my Summit, so I thought, "how cool would it be to make a PAN and TILT for my phone!?"

I already had the servos - Spektrum SR200 & Traxxas 2080 - what more could there be? Oh yeah.. CONTROLLING them! Fortunately I had an old 27mhz TQ that came with my 1:16 E-Revo 4 months ago. I went out and bought a joystick for a helicopter and ripped the control off, and replace my throttle and steering with the joystick! One stick, pan & tilt! ..... 27mhz....

SO, I went to the store, bought a $50 used 2.4ghz 2 ch tq, and the antenna was busted. Fortunately! I went back, picked up the 4ch 2.4ghz high output TQ that comes with the 5 channel receiver.

Great, NOW I have a high output 2.4ghz .... joystick controller!? Thanks to the likes of a few folks on this forum I decided I'd put my Summits TQi radio in to the new (older) TQ! After a bunch of cutting, some more cutting, and a bunch of extra cutting... with a bunch of de-soldering, I made it work!

It's not yet finished, but after a 12 hour day of experimenting, testing, conceptualizing I've come to this:

This is the TQi board, with the extra board attached for the pots, power led, and "set" & "menu" buttons. You can see there's a real mess of wires and that extra board is too big to fit in to the TQ, so I've removed it.



This is where and how much I cut down on the inside of the back plate of the TQ remote



This is how perfectly it fits in - a few more mm and it would be too big!



Doing my own wiring to keep things neat and tidy



Here's how it sits with the new wires



Here's the whole system rigged together



Here it sits closed without anything in it's proper place yet



This is the joystick I ripped out of my Logitech Gamepad that I haven't used in years (it's up and down, left and right, AND.... press it and there's a button! Noice)



Now that I have two controllers, I can still run them off four batteries, but I would prefer they use their own power source so that I don't suddenly run out of power when I'm far far away, however the stock TQ doesn't have room for more than four batteries! AND there's some sort of programming window in the way

[krallopian]

My old 27mhz radio accepted 8 batteries, SO I removed the 27mhz radio from on top of it, removed the tQ radio from it's battery case, removed the programming pins (just cut'm off, spent too long trying to desolder them) and then in the middle of the case, replaced the springs, so that they stick outside allowing me to connect both controllers to two separate battery trays



Here is the top view of the 8battery tray with the holes poked out with my.... soldering iron - NEVER melt plastic with a soldering iron unless you want to destroy your tip, I was just excited to try it out and too lazy to get a drill... oh well



Here's both remotes plugged in



Starting to disassemble the pots/power led/set & menu board from the TQi and test fitting where I'll put everything
I am going to use the pots from the old 27mhz radio because they are shorter, and look better than the tQi ones imo






That's it for now, I'm going to watch an episode of the OFFICE, go to bed and get back to it as soon as I wake up

I hope someone learns something from all of this, I'm really excited about the project! Best of all, I'll be able to use the extra channels on the new remote to do all of this:

Steer my truck
Throttle/Brake my truck
Transmission Switch
Front Diff switch
Rear Diff switch
All locked switch
Pan my camera
Tilt my camera

I'm certainly excited!

I'll have one or two more channels available depending on how I wire it all up - not positive I can do the ALL DIFF LOCK switch or not, we'll see.

[Jimmie Neutron]

I like your idea of using PC ribbon cable... mine would look a lot more tidy inside if I had done that. lol

[krallopian]

Haha, I was sitting there stripping wires thinking, "man if only I would use ribbon cable... if... only.. what the heck am I doing!?" hahah so I grabbed the roll of it.

This is all only possible because I live with my folks (health crap, not because I'm a bum haha) and my father is an electronics guy so we have everything I could need and more AND if I ever get stuck, he's my go-to guy! I think you and I are very similar with the: "Lets do this, I got it... buuut I gotta ask the expert jussst to be sure about this one thing" it's great!

[krallopian]

So I've done some tricks to save myself from the mess of drilling holes, and mounting extras..

Since both of these remotes are LINK systems, they have the MENU & SET buttons. I was going crazy trying to find a place to put them that would be both functional and look cool! Functional wasn't as much of an issue as looking cool.

How about invisible? That's right, I've ended up using just the two MENU & SET buttons from the TQ, and have a switch to control which board they function on! A few tricks were needed to make this happen, but it certainly works as you can see in my amateur video below haha:



I'll put up a wiring diagram in a bit.

[krallopian]

Here is the wiring Diagram:



Click HERE for Full Size



Make most sense after watching the video.

[krallopian]

Man, this is a lot of work! It's not that any of it is necessarily difficult, it's that if I make one wrong cut I ruin the whole thing. I want to mount a switch, but I need to first figure out how I'm doing the power switch(s) but before I do that I Need to figure out how I'm going to... soooo much pre-planning! Haha, I'm totally exhausted because for the past few nights I've just been tossing and turning "problem solving" this thing! I've been so IN to it that I feel wiped.

Anyway, I'm sure I'm talking to myself here, but I figured I'd post an update!

[Jimmie Neutron]

You are not talking to yourself... lol

I did not sleep for 3 or 4 days while deciding where to place my switches.
I definitely feel you... one mm off and it just won't work.

[TQi]

yeah man, I want to see how this thing turns out

it's going to be supreme once you finish, I finally got a chance to read it all

[krallopian]

I spent a good 6 hours driving around today looking for switches an other things. I ended up getting what I needed, and by fluke they fit EXACTLY right, not .5mm off, but EXACT fits.

However, I'm exhausted and didn't get much work done on this thing today. I've kind of wrecked the case, my dremel decides, "prototype? Lets make this perfect! .. final version? WBAHARTBAIWUHTR(@!*Q%RU$(*@RU(F*!@DF(&!@(FD BWAAAA SUCKA" ... stupid thing.

I'm replacing the LED with two "blocks" of two. Two tiny (I think 2 or 3mm) leds in a small "block" for each transmitter. Not sure how I'll mount them yet, but I think I have some super bright whites, blues, reds and oranges somewhere... I'll see what works.

I'm going to figure out how to switch on and off the lights tomorrow, I'm thinking for the second remote's channel 4 & 5, I'll have channel 4 turn on the stock lights, and channel 5 turn on the roof lights. If I can't get it working with just a few parts, I have some old 8 pin ic's somewhere I can code up to do the trick, I'd certainly prefer not to! I know they sell "receiver" switches, but I don't feel like paying for such a simple thing.

I picked up a new Antenna box today too, but there's no antenna mount on it!?!? TRA3628 what a joke. Will post pics tomorrow of progress.

I'm "stuck" with the joystick, I just can't figure out a nice clean way to mount it. If I wasn't putting the TQi board up top, it'd fit perfectly up there, buuuut there's no room left. My original idea (above the battery tray) is still best I think, it's just I don't think its going to look so great.

[Jimmie Neutron]

I think it is going to work best down in the base...
Not sure what you are working with for mounting options, but you could always have a thin aluminum "plate" glued to the top of the base to either mount it or cover uglyness.... even heavy duty tin foil and rubber cement if it is just a cover.

PS.
Tell your dremel to speak English next time. lol

[krallopian]

Hahah, yeah it's not doing a good job of anything I tell it to do right now. It's from 1981, so I should be happy it even works at all.

Look what I just found:

http://www.zeromartz.com/3d-button-a...000-p-733.html

How nice that would be if I could find one of THOSE, it would be WAY better than the one I have now, I wish I had an old PSP I could take apart.

[TQi]

oh yeah the psp stick is really compact and works like a charm, that would be one of your best bets.. 2 of them I guess

get a new dremel !

[krallopian]

No just one! I'm assuming it's up/down/left/right? No-one has any.. I'm not going to spend $100 just to get a $2 joystick.. what a shame. I should be DONE THIS BY NOW EUGH.

[TQi]

yeah it's like a normal joystick it just moves on a flat serface instead of a convex or the ball thingy.. it has all the function of a decent joystick though, I have an old one laying around without the charger

[krallopian]

... bwah... hah... HAHAH!

Look what I just drove to Barrie to pick up for $20:



$20 for TWO!

My night just got busier


Side note: The stick is a lot smaller than I anticipated, but that should only make it fit even easier! Again, this is for the TILT & PAN camera rig I've made.

[krallopian]

An hour later I have it working! Figuring out the pin-out wasn't too bad - thank you Google - and here it is working!



Look at the size difference, THAT's what I'm talkin' bout!



HOWEVER............ I'm not sure what the pot value is on this PSP one, I have to measure it still - I was too excited to record a video of it working haha. I'm pretty sure it's much less, it appears to be a 2k pot, vs the stock 5k and the 10k one I was using all along. This means the range is limited, where the other pot would turn the servo 45° either direction (for a full 90° sweep) this PSP one seems to only do about 20-25° Something to work on of course, but the point is, IT WORKS!

[TQi]

get a video up ASAP!

[Jimmie Neutron]

[krallopian]

I've drilled out a test hole on my old 27mhz, and it's pretty good, if the plastic was 0.2mm thinner, it would be perfect, but it works the way it is. I'm thinking I'm going to drill a hole the correct size for the joystick's movement, and then use a larger drill to "round off" or bevel the edge, to allow the cap of the stick to smoothly move. I dunno, it's scary scary stuff because one wrong move and it'll look like total crap.

Once this is mounted, I'll have a fully functional 10-channel setup, pretty stoked.

ch
1 steering
2 throttle
3 transmission
4 front diff
5 front diff/rear diff
6 camera pan
7 camera tilt
8 three positions avail, not sure what to do yet
9 main lights on
10 roof lights on

[TQi]

love the picture jimmie

and that's insane krall! 10 channels is almost overkill

love it

[Jimmie Neutron]

To "round off" or "dish out" use a sharp bit by hand.

[krallopian]

Oh yeah! I've seen it done that way, phew thanks!

[krallopian]

So I've broken the, "anyone can do this" barrier today and I'm not toooo sure how I feel.

Here's what I've done:

Two radios, one set of MENU & SET buttons, and ONE programming LED for BOTH boards.

Sounds simple, but MAN did it take me all day to do. This board is almost toast from the amount of solders and unsolders I've done, man am I glad it's double sided!

Basically, there are two 3mm blue led's showing power, one for the top board one for the bottom board. Then the original "on" led has been replaced with just a red led that is only active when in programming mode. With a switch I can switch between MENU & SET controlling the top board or the bottom one, AND in both cases, the ONE LED flashes showing commands. It was tricky, because the led isn't floating, it's either pulled up or pulled down by the microcontroller, and THAT causes all sorts of problems. I could have very easily just...... drilled a hole for another LED, and anyone CAN do that, but I wanted to keep the front as "stock" as possible, with as little leds, or "bling" as possible.

SO there.

Unfortunately the psp joystick doesn't have a quick fix, I'm going to leave it alone for now - it's good enough imo, but within the next couple weeks I'll get that all sorted out. I just want to drive my car!! Hahah

I plan on adding a couple charging jacks as well, I could put just ONE for both battery trays, but to keep it "proper" I'm going to avoid that route. Again, the whole idea with this was to make it as stock as possible, but have 10 channels...

[TQi]

hahah no doubt man, you gotta go drive that beast

but that sounds like some tough work even for someone with your experience

[krallopian]

Here's how it sits right now:



In that picture above you can see the mini circuit board I built to allow the one led to be controlled by both boards. It's covered in hot glue, I used lots of kynar wire and didn't want to risk losing any thing!

Here's a pic of the actual board:



And finally the lovely super bright blues. Two in total, stacked on top of each other, bottom = board on the bottom power, top = board on the top power (bottom is TQ, top is TQi)



I have to still wire the power led's in correctly, and then drill out the hole for the joystick and mount it in. Then I'm basically done! I'll just have to get back to work on the pan & tilt mechanism again haha, lotsa work coming up starting tomorrow though so I'm not sure how much I'll get done in the next couple days... it's been 8 days since I started on this, between getting parts, conceptualizing, trial & error etc... it's been a VERY LONG 8 days.

[TQi]

I'd say, lol get some sleep, I'm surprised you're up at this time but..

that TX looks intense!!.. To say the least

[krallopian]

Very exciting, very exCITING!



I've just finished "fine trimming" the cables connecting both boards and the smaller "gob" of tricks that allow the led's to do their thang:



Here's the switches/leds from behind (I know the heat shrink was too big, I was just using it as an insulator to prevent any accidental shorts)



I've put a square of velcro on the TQi board up top so I don't risk it moving around - it never did but I don't want to take the chance of shorting anything.

All I have left to do is drill the hole for the joystick from the psp, glue it in place (no mounting hardware, and certainly not enough room for any) with some hot glue...... and it's complete! Holy mooollyy.. what will I do with myself then!?

[Jimmie Neutron]

You have definitely taken the two-remotes-one-case mod to the next level!!

[krallopian]

Hahah, I remember reading your thread and seeing you talk to Daniel with great thanks, and you're my Daniel so that's great to hear from you! Hah, thanks man.. I'm just excited to get this thing finally closed up with the joystick mounted! I hope SOMEONE does this one day, I have taken probably 10,005 pictures along the way.

I'm excited that my camera recorded SIDEWAYS... at least according to YOUTUBE (On my computer it's fine) so on Youtube I've said, "rotate left" but it's been processing for ever, so I just posted the link anway... sideways or not it gets the gist across.

[TQi]

coming along beautifully.. whatever happened to simple plug in and play?

lol just jokin, that's looking like one godly remote hahah

[krallopian]

What you talking 'bout Willis!? There are plugs everywhere!

[TQi]

lol you know what I meant!

I like to keep it simple, but then again I don't have the experience you do with electronics

[krallopian]

It actually really is simple, it's just two boards, plugging in to their own set of batteries, with a switch between the positive lead (turns the power on and off) and two power led's. The ONLY complex stuff comes in with the single set of MENU & SET and the SET led.. but that was only my choice, it's of course not needed. Some cuts here and there, a bunch of soldering up and heat shrinking some connectors, and it's super simple! This could all be done with a lighter and some tape!

Thanks to the TQi I don't even need to worry about two antennas! The one on the TQi is incorporated into the circuit board!

Future plans are:

LCD voltage readout
Beeper when in programming, hooked up directly to the led when it goes flash flash flash you'd hear, "beep.. beep.. beep.." just like that.

ON TIME beeper - this is a big one! With super bright led's it shouldn't be too much of an issue to remember to turn the thing off, but hoooooowww many times do you say, "I'll just put there heeere.. while I quickly check this on the car.. and that, and this.. and this, and that.. and I need some lunch, that was tastey, what was I .. OH CRAP REMOTE IS STILL ON!!" So just a little "beep" every 2 minutes or so to remind me that it is still powered - it won't take any power at all to make this happen.

You know, thinking all this up, I'm THINKING I might just make a little circuit board, and sell this hahaha! "Buy this circuit board custom build for your TQ remote, and have alll these functions" hah, yeah right! If the interest was there it could be done for $25 a pop I guess, this would be the board, connectors, etc... trouble is the end-user would still need to buy the TQi and rip it apart blah nm this idea isn't going anywhere.

BEEPER
Voltage LCD readout

[TQi]

I like the voltage read out idea the most, you must just be forgetful not to turn your remote off hahah

I just took the little one out for a rip, makin sure it's tip top for sellin and I guess one of the batteries is dead!?!

so yeah the voltage display is an awesome idea, I'm gunna go check it again, I just charged my only 2 batts individually for the first time in months.. guess the parallel charging finally caught up and said "no.. you knew this was a bad idea from the get go.. this is what you get!" lol

**edit- forgot to ask, how long do you think until you'll have this tx sweetness complete?

[krallopian]

I was planning on drilling it out tonight, but before I do I have to remove the pots, trigger, and steering assembly (when the drill goes through, it pulls and it just might pull too far and damage them, not worth the risk) but I haven't because I got caught up watching a movie haha.

Tomorrow I'm drilling it out, I might even get the beeper running if I find a small enough piezo around here. Heck I might even find an old LCD thing, I had plenty years ago.. I got the idea from this picture:



I just can't find any info, I joined a forum to message that person but no response in a couple days - oh well. I think that looks awesome, but that's a 7 segment LED display, much MUCH more battery intensive. LCD would be fine, takes no power at all (like an lcd watch) but I don't think mine had a backlight, it's been forever.

The remote is technically DONE, I mean except for the hole for the joystick from the psp, but I have to properly mount the switches - you can see in the video they are just loose. You know, I meant voltage display for the remote itself, not the car.. I just realized you probably think I meant vehicle voltage display. Nope. That's a couple steps above what I'm capable of haha.

[TQi]

hahah yup, aahhh man that would have been sick!

I was gunna say something stupid like you don't even need the telementary display with what you have, lol shows how much I know about it

I'm gunna go see if this battery's fried or not.. **edit- figured it out, got her workin.

I think I'm gunna have to get you to work some magic on my future TQi hahah.. I got some ideas

[krallopian]

So I've found a voltmeter I want to use, unfortunately it's in CHINA 100% the other side of the world.... but here's a pic of it:



Here's a quick photoshop of how I imagine it looking mounted:



Because I have two battery trays, I plan on making a 3-way switch: "Battery Tray 1, Battery Tray 2, Both Trays" and then a power switch, maybe momentary. I would press the momentary button, and it would display whatever tray I'm asking it to. Vutchutink?


**Edit

You know I was thinking, depending on how the iDock get's it's information, I MIGHT be able to steal the battery voltage info from the pins inside the tqi board... there are say 20 pins there, I'm sure there's "car voltage" info on one of them! Here's hoping in the future I actually test it out - if it's true, there could be a chance in taking it and wiring it directly to this voltmeter! That'd be pretty sweet!

[krallopian]

actually now that I think of it, three position would work best as... left = left battery pack... center = off... right = right battery pack. no need for BOTH that's useless info AND this gets rid of the need for a second switch (push button)

[krallopian]

Right. Drilled the joystick hole, and it's worked out exactly as I had hoped - was it ever stressful! The hole had to be exact, AND in the exact spot, or there wouldn't be any support, or it wouldn't have full range of movement, AND it could not be centered - if the hole was too big, you would be able to see the it past the joystick itself, making it look very amateur.

Started off by removing everything from the top so I wouldn't risk damaging anything: (I stand strongly by: DO NOT BE LAZY, DO IT RIGHT!)



Drilled the hole, and rounded it off:



Mounted it, used a shim from an ofna pack I had (10049) and it holds it exactly flush against the case, and locked it in place nicely! no need for glue:



Here she is!! The motion is fantastic, very smooth!



All I have to do now is desolder the leads I put on it, and it'll plug right in to the connector I already have waiting on the board! It's funny, this joystick is the whole reason I started this in the first place! It went from a cheap toy-grade heli remote joystick, to a 10k logitech game pad joystick, to this psp thing that seems as though it was made for this Traxxas transmitter!