Do-it-yourself projects and technology updates

DIY micro car airplane

Filed under: Uncategorized — Greg Lipscomb on February 13, 2007 @ 7:38 am



Well, I was wasting time yesterday during lunch, and decided to go into Walgreens. I went to the toy section, and they had what I was looking for. I have been on the look out for one of those mini r/c cars. Anyway they had one for only $6. So I grabbed it. I have for a long time been looking at making a Living Room Flyer plane that is made from the Receiver and Transmitter from one of these cars.

Now in all actuality, it is prob. too heavy to fly in your living room, but it is still really small. This guy talks about how to convert the car to a plane.

Now the first step is to increase the range of the transmission. The car is only good up to 20 feet. One mod is to increase the length of the antenna on the receiver, or plane. The second is to increase the power of the transmitter. You can stick a 9 volt battery to power the transmitter, but that is too much voltage for some of the circuitry, so you simply add a 7805 5V voltage regulator to cut the voltage down.

The next step is to get another motor. A N20 motor will do, and it will direct drive a propeller. You also need more voltage for the motor. The supplied Nimh battery is only 1.2 volts, and that is no where near enough juice. You need a Lithium Polymer 50-145 mah battery that will supply around 3.7V, and is much lighter. The only problem is that the power transistors on the receiver are not powerful enough to run the motor. You can simply add a mosfet with higher ratings to solve this problem.

Now you can either build your own plane, and mount all of the gear, or you can buy a free flight plane like in the picture, and you will have your own RC plane for around $50. (You have to buy the battery and a charger, which is not super cheap). Now some people have used 2 NIMH batteries from 2 cars and have had a successful plane. You just have to keep everything light. I want to do this mod, but I don’t have the small Lipo batteries, so it may be a while.

Check out this awesome project here.

4 Responses to “DIY micro car airplane”

  1. DIY Live » DIY Archive » Miniature bit ESC Says:
  2. [...] Here is a fantastic project that I have found. It is a miniature ESC to use with one of those small RC cars such as a microsizer, or Bit Char, or ZipZap. An ESC is an Electronic Speed Control. It is basically a Motor Controller. I posted previously on using the transmitter and receiver for these cars to build a small airplane. The problem with the receiver is that it won’t support enough current to run larger motors, and it also only has power on or off. This ESC will allow you to change the speed of your motor. It also has a feature that will shut the motor off if there has not been any buttons pressed in the last few seconds. This will save the plane from flying away if it gets out of range. He uses an Atmel AVR Microcontroller, and a Mosfet transistor as the motor controller. Not bad for something smaller than a postage stamp. The BitESC is a small electronic speed controller for those little RC cars like the MicroSizer / BitChar-G. It can be used in a small RC plane to have some control over the speed of the motor. The speed of the motor ramps up or down, depending on which of the buttons on the transmitter you press. If no button is pressed, the ESC will ramp the throttle down to a stop after a few seconds. This safety net comes in handy when the plane flies out of transmitter reach. [...]

  3. TeamDroid » Micro R/C Car Hacks for Model Airplane Use Says:
  4. [...] [via DIY Live]RC-CAM Projects: Micro R/C Car Hacks for Model Airplane Use [...]

  5. khaleefa Says:
  6. But i need the circuit diagram for the tx and rx.

  7. Fredbailesvvqvvxkcvt Says:
  8. Fredbailesvvqvvxkcvt

    Fredbailesvvqvvxkcvt

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