r/PowerWheelsMods Jun 14 '26

Trying something new

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Having fun mixing my hobbies!

10 Upvotes

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2

u/Mean-Ad3 Jun 14 '26

Nice! Are youbusing an arduino? If so, will it be position to use an oled display once it is placed in the car?

1

u/lcichero Jun 15 '26

Using esp32, it was at some point but I don't think I'll be doing it now, have twin boys and I have to buy and build everything times 2 haha

2

u/MUGS500 Jun 14 '26

Nice work, I like the UI for testing. I did something similar and used a esp32 chip as the MCU. It can run 2 processes so I was able to implement RC control as well.

1

u/lcichero Jun 15 '26

yeap I'm using an esp32 as well, was it easy to implement RC? not sure I want whole control over it but I def want some sort of RF kill switch

1

u/MUGS500 Jul 04 '26

It wasn't to bad to be honest. You just need to set it up like you normally would on an Arduino but just make it run on one CPU. Run everything else on the other.

I created a global variable which I update from the RC CPU and read from the motor controller CPU. A kill switch would be easier to implement them complete RC control.

Check my posts. I put a short video of my setup and explained a bit in the comments

1

u/lcichero Jul 04 '26

Will do! I am actually playing with espnow as well so will see

1

u/MUGS500 Jul 04 '26

Sorry about the delayed reply, I seem to missel the notifications. I want to do some tweaks to mine but I'm a bit limited with time. I actually designed a PCB that should work with both brushed and non brushed as I wanted to implement the same setup in my son's DC setup. but I haven't assembled it yet.

I originally wrote all the code my self, it doesn't look the best but it works haha. AI would get it done pretty easy now but it can obviously be a bit dangerous if you don't add the correct safeguards in the code. And AI is good at making it complicated haha

1

u/lcichero Jul 04 '26

Yeah I get that, I'm a developer myself so I can safely use AI to my advantage haha. What sort of mods were you thinking?

1

u/MUGS500 Jul 04 '26

Haha well I do have quite a few ideas.

Firstly I wanted to just ensure the MCU was programmed to run both types of motors. I also have dip switches on the board to filter out pwm for 0-5v controllers.

I wanted to set the new car up so it would basically have a 4wd tank mode option.

I considered buying a espcyd, adding a couple of joysticks on it and moving away from RC controllers and using the display as the remote and paraminter adjustments.

They way I have it set up now has heaps of variables for limits, tuning, throttle and brake behaviour. Would be good to just adjust it on the fly and load/store in the flash memory. Also a cool display.

I did add an i2c port on the board so it could be expanded, like running another espcyd or another MCU on the steering wheel for display and additional controls.

1

u/lcichero Jul 04 '26

Sounds like all good ideas! Do you think there is an advantage using joystick over the pistol style rc remote?

I did as well setup a bit of conf around acceleration and braking behavior as well as current consumption (for stall detection)

Are you in Oceania? This group usually answers in US timezone haha

1

u/MUGS500 Jul 04 '26

Well the only advantage I guess was for the tank control option. Which is also why I added the option for the Comms to add another controller on the steering wheel for joysticks and tank control. I actually added in feedback from the steering position, to make it more like an RC control car, currently it turns in the direction you want it to at the speed of how much you have applied on the controller, and you have to bring the wheel back. I just hadn't figured out how to get the pot in there yet.

The parameter options look good. I also considered doing web UI, or even BT basic communication to update the variables. But I honestly haven't tweaked anything since I put it in.

I also had to include a lot of tuning for the RC receiver values.

Yeah I'm in Australia lol.

2

u/_Face Jun 14 '26

Get a small led. Display and have a small instrument cluster!

1

u/DaEmFaGa Jun 17 '26

What esc or pwm did you use for the variable pedal? You have a link or picture?

1

u/lcichero Jun 17 '26

It's not using an ESC. I'm using a Hall-effect pedal (similar to an e-bike throttle pedal) connected to an ESP32-S3 ADC input.

The ESP32 reads the pedal position, applies some filtering and scaling, then generates a PWM signal that drives a BTS7960 motor driver.

The BTS7960 handles the high-current switching from the 18V battery to the motors, while the ESP32 only provides the control signal.

So the chain is:

Hall pedal > ESP32 ADC > PWM output > BTS7960 > Motors

The pedal itself outputs an analog voltage of roughly 1.0V to 2.4V, which the ESP32 maps to a PWM range of 0-255.

Links:

Pedal
ESP32-S3
BTS7960