general PCB questions

[Reaperman93010]

is there a location I can go where there is a hand-holding walkthrough of exactly how a 27mhz receiver works? Or how to build one.

Every so often I get the idea of building my own compact rx/esc combo. I've seen very compact units for aircraft, and feel cars are left out. We can get much better than the epoch board. I wonder if anybody makes a 27mhz 'radio on a chip' or something like that. 2.4ghz all-in-ones (http://www.semiconductorstore.com/Pages/Items/Nordic/NRF2401%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20.htm) are all over the place, somebody must have a 27am.

I know I'm probably just asking the exact same people I asked last time on another forum, but I'll give it another shot.

I'm thinking around twice this size. Two mosfets and some kind of more advanced steering setup.
http://ripper7racing.com/forums/uploads/post-36-1130625504.jpg

specifically I'm wondering how the signal comes in, how to separate channels, etc.

[oldtamiyaphile]

I'm only aware of one site, and it's in Japanese, building hobby RX's based on the PIC. Is there anything wrong with using a MZ board though?

[Reaperman93010]

nothing's wrong with the kyosho board. my real problem is that over the past few years, I've been comming a long way building my knowledge of electronics, but I've stopped growing. With simple instructions I've found I can build anything and figure out how it works along the way.

My gba (http://www.geocities.com/reaperman93010/), scratchbuilt prom flasher (initially for my MVS bios), serial interface for my DTV--I grew with those projects, as far as RC goes, I just purchase and drive.

As of right now vehicle radio equipment is a magical box to me. Sure I've stacked fets and pretty much figured turbos out, but the 'front end' of the board is a complete mystery. It's not that I think I can do better than kyosho's board it's the process of getting there.

ideally what I'd like to build is an rx and esc separated by a plug so they can be moved about to conserve space. I'm thinking about the same size as an epoch board in total area, but using a more standard speed control method.

I may start out even smaller, though. I'd like very much to see that japanese site. Are there any good TTTT or ultra-micro-flyer pages that anybody can recommend?

another neat idea would be using a simple serial interface hooked to a RX to memorize how a car gets around a track and feeding it back into a custom TX unit to create a drone--not a fast one (for traction reasons) but at least a moving target around the track. Since my software knowledge is well above my hardware knowledge.

[Reaperman93010]

some reasonably helpful links:

looks pretty familiar, doesn't it? (http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/FinalProjects/s1999/blair/Schematics.html)
college project (http://www.ece.uvic.ca/~ece499/2002b/group05/hardware.html)
simple, non-propo systems (http://members.shaw.ca/novotill/)
more non-propo (http://jap.hu/electronic/rf.html)
converting bit throttle to propo (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94563&page=1)

life looks very doable.

[epoch1-43]

Very cool thread RM93010, I love the concept of RC hacking (vs. modding) - keep us abreast of your progress w/ this - cool! :)

[dr_joe]

I'm looking to learn, too. My learning project is centered on putting smarts into a small scale vehicle. Imagine an RC car with a PIC micro on board. Instead of sending just steering and speed commands, one could send macro commands, e.g. directions around a course or a layout, and the micro would control vehicle direction and speed to get it from point A to point B.

Among the many things required to get this to work is adding more capability to the communication channel. So if you've made some progress on this since May, please share.