Turning Any R/C Car Into a Bluetooth App Control R/C Car

This project shows the steps to change an ordinary remote control car to a Bluetooth (BLE) control car with Wombatics SAM01 robotics board, Blynk App and MIT App Inventor.

The are many low cost RC cars with lots of features like the LED headlights and underglow lights. However, the remote controller came with the car cannot control lights and motors individually. With mobile App and Arduino board, we can convert these ordinary RC Cars to a more advanced bluetooth control toys.

We are using an Arduino Compatible board with BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy), so that it works with both iOS and Android phone.

Step 1: Picking a RC Car

We picked a Fast Lane 1:24 RC Car. This car is prefect for this project, as it has all features that we are looking for, such as headlight and underglow LEDs with enough room to put our board inside.

Step 2: Taking the Car Apart

After taking it apart, identify the wires for LEDs and motors. The desoldering them off the board and replace them with Arduino board and motor drive module.

Step 3: Putting on the Motor Drive Module

In this step, solder the steering motor to "MOTO A" and back motor to "MOTO B" on the motor driver module. Solder jumper wires to headlight & under-glow LEDs on both +ve & -ve side.

Step 4: Connecting to the SAM01 Arduino Robotics Board

Putting on the SAM01 Arduino Robotics Board and connecting the jumper wires as following.

PIN 3 - INT1 for Motor A (Steering Motor)
PIN 5 - INT2 for Motor A
PIN 6 - INT3 for Motor B (Drive Motor)
PIN 9 - INT4 for Motor B
PIN 10 - Headlight LEDs
PIN 13 - Under-glow LEDs