Originally Posted by
RCscale
Very nice. Where does it stand now, got a Github? Thought about selling on Tindie or something?
I have two bodies coming and I thought about using one to make a police car. Something like this could be very helpful. Also using Sbus for control might open up some options.
I was thinking an ESP32 might be a nice chip to use for the WiFi interface. Allow total control over modes from a web app.
I sell a few other RC bits on Tindie, but this one hasn't hit the store yet. It's an evolution/expansion of existing products. I'd be happy to send one or more if interested. It's built around a Microchip microcontroller (2-series) using the Arduino IDE with an add-on core. The 4 output ports were in principle intended for headlights/taillights/indicator lights and then I added the neopixel ports to enable the F1 safety car rear light bar, but could be used for any other purpose (drift cars?). One of the things that gave me pause was the programming. Nice-looking sequences/patterns aren't trivial to code in C/C++. Making it end-user customisable would take a lot more software than I have the time/motivation to implement. The SBUS interface would be interesting, but limited to certain radios. Using an ESP32 or similar with native wireless would be nice, but again, a lot of coding to make it robust. Possibly slightly easier would be making it updatable via USB using a configuration file. An RP2040 would have a smaller footprint and has native USB functionality.
My original thinking was to just read the steering/throttle outputs and blink/shine/flash accordingly. I've got code that makes the headlights brighten a bit as the "alternator" (ie: throttle) spools up
The F1 safety car leveraged two independent channels on a 6-channel radio to control the patterns.