RC Car Modifying?

[Lothair]

Does anyone know what you can do with a basic kid's RC Car?

[CorsePerVita]

remove weight, see if an aftermarket battery with pushes a little more power is available, look for an aftermarket motor option. you'd be amazed how many people at hobby shops modify the poo out of those. i've got a neighbor who is into that stuff. made one of those "xmods" things super duper fast for an electric RC.

[BuzzKillington]

You can run lights and maybe upgrade the shocks/wheels depending on how it's assembled. You can mod it to accept aftermarket bodies with a little fiddling but you'll probably pay more for a body than you had paid for the whole rc car @ ~$20-$50 each.

[Konrad]

Equip it with sensors and microcontroller "intelligence" to autodrive through programmed courses and terrain ... or throw in remote transponder and use it as a surveillance vehicle, lol.

[Twigsoffury]

strap three C stage rockets to it

http://www.myspace.com/jman_s/videos/built-a-rocket-car/6041885

[blaze15301]

do what i did get a 9v battery and hook it into the motor. it gives it a bit more power.

[billygoat333]

do what i did get a 9v battery and hook it into the motor. it gives it a bit more power.

unless of course it takes more power than that already to run... then this won't help at all. :P

[diluzio91]

i picked up a cheap one, where can i buy a motor and battery? i dont know alot about this kind of stuff, but the stock motor is slow... also maybe a better motor for turning the wheels... lol...... thanks guys

[x88x]

I seem to remember another thread about this somewhere...hmm, anyways..
What's your end goal with this? In all honesty if you want something high performance you're gonna end up replacing just about the entire thing.

As for parts, depending on what you're looking for, one of these (or a combination) should do you nicely.
http://www.goldmine-elec.com/
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_index.asp

[diluzio91]

nah, i just want it to go faster, i just like screwing around a little, and its SLOW now. is there a special motor i need? if i have a 9.7V battery can i change it to a different voltage without breaking something? lol... im a total noob with this. :D

[x88x]

Well, assuming your bog standard cheap RC car, it's probably a brushed DC (BDC) motor. They're a lot easier to control, but it does limit your choices in the available RC component market. In terms of replacing the motor, that means two things:
1) The controller can only control a BDC motor.
2) It can probably control any BDC motor.

The difference is that to drive a BDC motor you just supply it with a flat DC voltage and it takes care of itself. With a brushless DC (BLDC) motor, you can get a lot more power in a lot smaller, much more quieter package, but you have to feed it a trapezoidal or, ideally, sinusoidal signal that varies in wavelength depending on what speed you want the motor to go.

So, as long you put in a brushed DC motor, you should be fine. Any of these would probably work fine as long as they fit in the voltage and size envelope you want.
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/products.asp?dept=1104

As for replacing the battery, that gets a bit more complicated. There you'll be limited by the limitations of the components on the control board in the car. Knowing cheap electronics, they're probably not rated much higher than the stock voltage and current, but hey, it was cheap, right? ;) In general, as long as the controller and motor can stand it, the more voltage you push through a motor, the faster it will go. The more current you push through, the more torque it will have, but that's probably not very relevant in this situation.

Steering may be more difficult. IDK if things have changed, but the last time I looked in a cheap RC car, it was using a ridiculously weak rotary solenoid to turn the front wheels. High end RC cars use servos, but that would require major modifications to the existing control circuitry. You could probably just drop a better potentiometer in there instead...there I'm just guessing though, never tried that myself.

[diluzio91]

lol.... it was originally a $60 car, i got it for $20 on clearance at walmart... as for the motor, it has 2 wires leading to it, and there is a wire connecting the 2 points with what looks like a little asprin attached to it in the middle. so i assume that means its a brushed motor. i might just put aside some $$ and get a nicer model? hmmmmm... decisions decisions. lol

edit. also if i get a 12V motor i can hook it up to a 9.7V battery? and do i need a special kind to get it to go backwards and forwards?

[x88x]

Yes, sounds like it's probably a brushless motor. That thing in the middle is a small ceramic capacitor...I've never really figured out why they have that there...never really bothered to try, tbh...probably serves to stabilise the voltage going the motor. :think:

Yes, you can run a 12V motor at 9.7V. It might draw more current though, depends on the motor.

At the levels you're talking about, I haven't heard of any that behave strangely if they're run backward. Some bigger, EV-class (EV == Electric Vehicle) motors I've heard of unravelling themselves if run backwards, but I don't think you'll need to worry about that.

TBH I don't really know much about RC systems themselves. I can talk about some of the components till you ears fall off, but as for a whole system? *shrugs* Most of what I know about components intended for RC use is from my research on small EV stuff. The upper-end RC stuff is frequently used for small EVs (think scooters, mopeds, electric bikes, etc), especially the batteries and motors. Take this guy for example. It's a favorite around certain circles of the small EV crowd for it's high power, small size, and low price. It's designed for use in big RC airplanes and produces about the same power as a 60-80cc ICE engine. :twisted:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=5142
http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/qq3/x13931x/HXT80-100-A.jpg