rotarypower101
New Member
So I have a RC powerwheel that I am building, and I need some help with the control systems that I am building for it.
If you are familiar with the RC hobby, then you will probably know what a servo tester is, (it can be directly put in line of a std servo and battery and control the servo via a potentiometer) well I am trying to make these servo testers my manual input for the vehicles steering servo and electronic speed control.
So the control system is both RC and manual based on a remotes 3rd channel toggling between the two modes, for quick recovery of the little tikes from imminent peril.
I have a few problems with the pots that I have come across that I would love to solve.
First a small description of the mode of operation of the servo testers used: they use a small linear 10k ohm pot to control the pulse width that is being sent to the servo 1.0-2.0ms
The issue I am having is that I need to change the operation of these “servo testers” for both the throttle and steering to accomplish my goals and give the correct operation.
For the throttle I would like to change the servo testers operation to only operate in half the normal range either 0-5k (or more precisely 5-0k for correct operation) or 5-10k range of the original full 0-10k pot. I only need half the range because the pot will be connected to a gas pedal and can only utilize the forward direction, there is a stock gear shifter that has reverse on it so this will not be an issue to enable reverse.
For the steering I have technically solved the problems I have had (I needed 1/3 of the sweep ~90* of the full ~270*) by gearing the pot and steering wheel.
But I would still like to find a solution to the question of how to deal with a situation where 90* of operation was required for the full range of a pot to operate correctly? The issue I was having was that I had a 10k ohm pot, and thought since I needed only 90* of motion, I could use a 30k pot and just use 1/3 of the 0-30k sweep to get a 0-10k ohm output, but no dice...
Here is a short clip showing its operation, safe to assume I will never be a cinematographer..
For reference this is the windshield and steering column upside down.
YouTube - Powerwheel steering pot
And here is a pic of what the device looks like
**broken link removed**
If you are familiar with the RC hobby, then you will probably know what a servo tester is, (it can be directly put in line of a std servo and battery and control the servo via a potentiometer) well I am trying to make these servo testers my manual input for the vehicles steering servo and electronic speed control.
So the control system is both RC and manual based on a remotes 3rd channel toggling between the two modes, for quick recovery of the little tikes from imminent peril.
I have a few problems with the pots that I have come across that I would love to solve.
First a small description of the mode of operation of the servo testers used: they use a small linear 10k ohm pot to control the pulse width that is being sent to the servo 1.0-2.0ms
The issue I am having is that I need to change the operation of these “servo testers” for both the throttle and steering to accomplish my goals and give the correct operation.
For the throttle I would like to change the servo testers operation to only operate in half the normal range either 0-5k (or more precisely 5-0k for correct operation) or 5-10k range of the original full 0-10k pot. I only need half the range because the pot will be connected to a gas pedal and can only utilize the forward direction, there is a stock gear shifter that has reverse on it so this will not be an issue to enable reverse.
For the steering I have technically solved the problems I have had (I needed 1/3 of the sweep ~90* of the full ~270*) by gearing the pot and steering wheel.
But I would still like to find a solution to the question of how to deal with a situation where 90* of operation was required for the full range of a pot to operate correctly? The issue I was having was that I had a 10k ohm pot, and thought since I needed only 90* of motion, I could use a 30k pot and just use 1/3 of the 0-30k sweep to get a 0-10k ohm output, but no dice...
Here is a short clip showing its operation, safe to assume I will never be a cinematographer..
For reference this is the windshield and steering column upside down.
YouTube - Powerwheel steering pot
And here is a pic of what the device looks like
**broken link removed**