- [Aaron] Guys, what's up?
Welcome back to the studio,
and today I finally get to do something
I've wanted to do for a very long time.
Now please bear with me.
I'm down and out with a cold for the last two weeks
trying to beat it but it's giving me plenty of time
to think and to come up with something new.
Now I have seen this done and in fact I'm getting this idea
from a fellow Canadian that's up in Edmonton
that took part in the Drift King competition
that we did several months ago
and he put up a Facebook video
that I thought was pretty neat.
He actually had a PS4 controller that was a steering wheel
and pedal system hooked into his radio.
I saw it in some group somewhere
or else I'd say what his name is, but I don't know!
But here, he busted open one of his radios,
was able to crack open the steering wheel and pedal system
and hook everything together so it operated
as a remote control.
This actually steers his drift car
which I thought was so super cool.
So big props to him.
I know that this has been done for a long time.
The first one I saw was back in 2010,
and I've never done it before.
I've never really seen an in-depth tutorial
on how to do this but I figure if they can muddle
through this, so can I.
It's been pretty cold and windy outside
and being down with a cold,
I couldn't do too much RCing outside, but regardless,
I want to keep going and if I can figure this out,
I'm gonna post it for you guys to see
and that's why you're watching right now.
Wouldn't it be cool to get out and control your drift car
or trail truck with a steering wheel and pedal system
if you're out on the course?
Right on, eh?
So let's get going.
I've decided to keep it simple
and go with the Spectrum DX2E.
As you can see, no screen on top,
so I'm trying to keep the electronics to a minimum
just so when I do actually get inside this radio,
I'm not overwhelmed by a bunch of electronics.
So one, two, three, four.
Spectrum is known for putting in a ton of screws.
Five, six, seven.
I bet you there's at least one under here right here.
Eight, nine, 10.
I'm gonna bet on 10, let's see.
I'm not too worried about ripping the stickers off
right now.
It's not, this is old radio, still functions,
but I'm not too worried about that.
And I think that's it.
So one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
I was one off.
Oh, there's a screw hiding.
Is it under here?
Yeah, I see a hole.
There is 10!
Hilarious!
I knew it was there.
Okay, so here is the antenna attached up here.
I'm gonna just slowly slide that. (laughs)
That's as slow as I could do. (laughs)
So I want to be careful with the antenna
'cause it slid into a metal tube there.
These three wires, one, two, three,
and then three out the front are the only ones I see.
So this one's gonna be for throttle.
Now it's interesting because I'm gonna have forward,
neutral, and reverse, so I wonder how that's gonna look
inside the steering wheel compartment.
I'm also gonna want to take all of this out.
So how am I gonna do that effectively here?
Now I also have to take into consideration
I've got the dials, the light, and the switch,
plus all these buttons on top, right?
So I'm gonna have to be kind of careful
when I'm removing everything.
There we are, there we are.
The top piece with the button sliding out.
So basically my goal is to put this entire unit
right into the steering wheel somewhere
and try to figure how the heck to hook this up.
Okay.
All the screws from the bottom have been removed.
Remove the top plate.
Nice, what do we see here.
Okay, so here is the USB on the back.
Here is the plugin for the pedals.
I just did all the screws on here
so I may be able to lift this out.
(screwdriver working)
Nice.
Aha.
Wow, look at the amount of grease
they actually put on those pedal springs.
Amazing.
All right, so one, two, three cables off of here.
One, two, three, four, fives off the other side,
and they all go down into one line, okay?
So basically that's moving a variable resistor.
I think that's what those are called.
And then I just figured I was going to need a vehicle
that actually was bound to this radio,
so I'm gonna do that right now.
Of course, I've taken it all apart
which I thought you guys would think it was fun to see.
I'm gonna switch it on by holding in the bind button,
switching on the taken-apart radio.
Gonna add a binding right now.
(whirring)
So the steering wheel and the radio must work
in similar ways.
Like if I look at this and I turn the wheel, right,
this actually goes down to a sensor down here
and it has these three wires that come out to main board
but it also has this cable here which goes and houses
all of these cables.
Now one thing I see of course right away
is that it's purple, blue, and green,
and there is a purple, blue, and green in this whole harness
of wires, but what is this one for?
Is it positive, negative, and signal?
You know, I'm gonna try this or I could try this.
Am I gonna wreck this?
I don't know, but that's why you guys are watching
so I can experiment and wreck my stuff so you don't have to.
Okay, first thing will be first, I guess.
Remove the actual wires from the steering wheel.
Now I'm removing this whole throttle and steering unit
altogether, just leaving these wires, one, two, three,
one, two, three on the back.
Okay, so I'm just going to remove the USB cable
altogether.
(whirring)
Just removing the board that I don't need.
Now I'm just tinning the other wires that are here.
Okay, after an hour and a half, I've been off camera
trying to figure this out for you guys
because the wiring was actually a little bit complicated.
The color coding of course didn't line up at all
but I tell you, my friends, I almost have it down.
Now, first we have to understand how these pedals work.
This is a sprung system.
Right now it's not in the spring stance
because the cover is not on,
and they actually run these little variable controllers.
There's teeth here, and a small gear
with a variable controller goes over to this side here
with another setup of a variable controller
as well as this pedal, and then it spits out these wires,
this light green and this light blue, a white and a yellow,
plus the yellow and red are powering each one of these.
These four little wires go through here
into the pinned cable.
I want to keep it so I can plug it in and take it apart
nice and clean, but then it spits it out
as a black, blue, white, and yellow. (laughs)
So I had to figure out on the Spectrum board
because it's only a three-color wire right here,
green, orange, and yellow that is actually was
yellow, blue and white, and black, as you see set up here,
and I finally have it working.
I want to say to you guys if I would have known
that this was gonna work, I would have paid more attention
and not got a table-mounted controller, of course,
but I'll make it work and I can always make a stand,
no big deal, but if you guys are gonna do this,
think about that in advance.
Here are the pedals that I switched over
the variable controllers in.
I do have it working.
My Gmade Komodo off to the side here,
plugged in with a fresh battery.
You can see how I've mounted the chip from the radio.
It's actually vertical.
The reason I'm doing that
is because there are mounting holes
that the top plate here has to actually go back on with.
Everything is just fine.
I think I actually will just leave the transmitter antenna
on the inside, instead of putting it on the outside
because there's no real need, and I tried with another board
to do a different switch to make this front switch work here
but didn't work.
For some reason, these boards don't like to work
without the original switch in it, can't figure out why.
It must be the wiring.
Anyway, so everything is hooked up and ready to go.
Here, have a look.
(laughs)
Yeah.
So totally working guys.
No problem at all.
I can do it quick,
or slow.
Is that blowing your mind or what?
Okay, so this one is going to be reverse.
This one is going to be the gas pedal for forward.
With these variable controllers here,
these pedals are normally in a sprung position
where this plate is pushing them forward a little bit.
So I'm gonna have to work with these
to show you right now and do it a little bit manually
but watch this.
This will be forward.
Ah, there you go.
Now, we'll back here, because it's not in a sprung position,
turn it off, and then this one should be reverse.
Whoa, I pushed on the gas too hard.
Okay, so it would go like this.
Is that crazy or what?
(mechanical whirring)
So there you go, my friends.
It does work, you can do it.
I've shown you here.
I hope it helps you guys out.
I'm looking forward to putting an FPV camera
on one of my trucks, putting my goggles on,
and actually going for a drive.
Is that cool or what?
I think anybody can do this.
I hope this has helped you out,
and I guess we'll just see you in the next episode
of RC Adventures.
Let me know what you think
in the comment section down below.
Is this something that you guys are gonna try out?
I know, it's not very practical,
but I think there's definitely uses for it.
Go outside and have some fun with RC, my friends.
You know I do.
(mechanical whirring)
(engine running)