rc car help

[kambliarup]

I wanna upgrade a RC toy car of 5V to 12V.
How can I do this without damging the ic i.e. the basic steps I should take for such an upgrade and what are the components I should add to the existing circuit?????
Pls Help Me

 

[dknguyen]

What kind of RC car? Are you talking about a "toy" or the things that rank up their with RC nitro airplanes and nitro helicopters?

You want to use a 12V battery instead of 5V right? Is this battery for the electronics? Or for the high power devices like the motors?

If it's an electric RC car:
If it's for electronics, just stick a linear regulator or switching regulator between the 12V battery and electronics. But whether or not the high power devices can handle 12V (they would be connected directly to the battery, the regulator is only for electronics), I do not know. They probably draw too much current for you to regulate. You could make it so everything runs at lower throttle (lower PWM duty cycle) and this would let you use a 5V motor with a 12V battery. It wouldn't increase performance by very much though...5V is really low though for the motors in an RC car and they can handle quite a bit more voltage.

If it's a toy car, you can just use a regulator for everything if it doesn't draw too much current. But what's the point? You won't get improved performance unless you do more since it's so much easier to burn out the motors when you overvolt them.

 

[kambliarup]

About a simple toy car

 

[dknguyen]

Why do you want to upgrade it to 12V? To get increased performance you have to overvolt the motors (the voltage going to the motors is the 12V battery voltage and is not stepped down from 12V to 5V). The problem is that a lot more heat is produced. If you cannot get rid of this heat, you will burn out your motor.

Anyways, if you want to overvolt your motors, all you do is stick a 12V->5V regulator between the battery and electronics and let 12V run straight to the motors. At some point though, the 12V going to the motor will pass through some of the electronics used to control the speed, you have to make sure the 12V running through these circuits won't damage them.

I am going to repeat this again (in case you don't speak English and do not understand what I mean). Add a 12->5V regulator for the electronics. And leave the motors connected to the 12V battery. Make sure the speed control electronics will not be damaged by 12V motor current running through them.

 

[kambliarup]

I want to connect 12V motors to the toy car circuit so i wanna upgrade the ckt so it works fine at 12V
Please help me how to upgrade

 

[dknguyen]

Use a 5V regulator to power the electronics (put 5V regulator between 12V battery and electronics). Power motor directly with 12V.

All you need to do is make 5V from 12V battery only for electronics so they are not damaged. Everything else should be fine at 12V.

 

[kambliarup]

If i use regulator then do i have to upgrade the toy car circuit ???

 

[dknguyen]

No, just stick the regulator between the battery and electronics so that it powers the electronics with 5V. Let 12V run to the motor like normal (you might have to bring some wires out of toy car circuit to split the power between electronics and motor.

12V will probably still flow through some special parts of electonics that control motor current. If these parts cannot handle 12V, they may burn out. There is nothing you can do about that except upgrade them (hard to do) or hope they can handle 12V (easier to do).

 

[audioguru]

Redesign and rebuild everything in the car to work at 12V. Or buy a new car that already is designed and built to work at 12V.

 

[kambliarup]

If i use regulator will ic be able to handle 12V
If yes where are the changes that i should make???

 

[audioguru]

The IC will work normally with a regulator that supplies it with the same low voltage that it had before. But a new motor driver circuit must be designed and made to match the IC's low output voltage to the higher voltage and higher current for the new motors.
With the higher current and more battery cells, the battery won't last long.

 

[Hero999]

No, just stick the regulator between the battery and electronics so that it powers the electronics with 5V.

That won't work on its own, you'll need to provide some sort of interface between the 5V control electronics and the motor.

 

[dknguyen]

That is assuming the motor controller can handle the 12V motor suply mentioned earlier above. He did not seem to be understanding so I left it out later on.

 

[Hero999]

Yes, of course you'd need to upgrade the motor. The only problem is getting a 12V one that would fit in the same space. The chances are if you did get a 12V motor the same size it'd also be the same power so you'd be back to square one.

 

[dknguyen]

I think he wants to overvolt the motors...at his own risk.

 

[audioguru]

I think he will see smoke come out of the simple toy car.

 

[dknguyen]

Hehe, probably, since they are probably cheap toy motors and you can only really overvolt high quality ones and even those burn out with proper cooling.

 

[kambliarup]

I am going to connect new 12V motors

 

[dknguyen]

Then just make sure the speed controller can handle 12V for the motor, and use a 5V regulator to power all the 5V electronics from the battery.

 

[kambliarup]

Thanks I will try this