Purpose:

Ever get tired of having to go over and right your RC car when it flips over far away from you? I know, it sucks.

But we have a solution. Just build a Flipper! It flips over your robot with the push of a button.

Materials:

1 high torque motor (preferably 10 kg cm torque or higher for heavier cars)

Bi-directional electronic speed controller

12 volt battery

(Make sure you have a good programmable 3 channel receiver-transmitter pair)

3'' x 5'' board of wood

1 L-bracket

3 nuts

3 bolts

Step 1: Design a Flat Shell for the Car

For this beginning part, the remote control car that you are using must use a shell on top with a flat surface. The flat surface is needed to attach the flipper mechanism without any loose parts. We have designed our shell after taking measurements. The shell was designed on Autodesk Inventor. In Inventor or what ever cad software is being used, make sure that there will be an antenna hole and some holes for the cable ties.

Step 2: Design the Flipper Mechanism

For this second step, you will need to create a flipper that will have enough power to flip your car over. In order to do this, you first cut a 3/4 inch thick piece of wood into the dimension of 3 by 5 inches. Next, you will want to cut 2 1 x 1.5 inch pieces from another 3/4 inch thick sheet of wood. Drill a hole big enough in the two cut pieces of wood to accommodate the bearing that will be used; make sure that these holes are parallel as an axle will need to be flat across both pieces. Insert the bearings into the drilled holes, then use epoxy glue to keep the bearings in the holes (make sure you only glued the outside of the bearing, because if you do the inside, then it would not rotate). After, we added the bearings and wood to the sides of a 5 by 3 wood board with a recommended thickness of 3/4 inch. Next, put the axle through the bearings with and on the outer end of the wood/bearing, add and tighten a 24 tooth sprocket. Then weld a 2 by 6 inch piece of sheet metal to the axle. Next, 2 inches down from the axle, place the motor on to the board wooden board. Secure the motor on to the board using zip ties and L brackets on either side of the motor (as long as the motor is secure, it's fine). Next, connect a 12 tooth sprocket to the motor and cut a chain to the needed length and attach it between the sprockets. Now connect the motor on to the electronics and it should work..

Step 3: Rig Up the Electronics!

If all goes well, this should be pretty simple. Take your motor controller and connect the motor end to the motor on the flipper. Take the battery wires (usually they're thicker and red and black) and connect it to an external battery, not the one you used to power the RC car. Both the motors require different amounts of voltage, so they need to be powered by two separate batteries. So it should be motor --> ESC --> receiver and battery --> transmitter.

Step 4: Binding the Shell to the RC Car

This is where the zip ties come in. Drill holes into the the top of the shell to make a space for the zip ties to get through. Wrap the zip ties under the RC car and bring it up to the top through the holes. Bind them. Now you have a shell that's completely zip tied to the car.

You're done!