- Mon Aug 29, 2016 9:52 pm
#142545
Good evening everyone. I am looking to modify a power wheel electric car for my daughter who has cerebral palsy. The goal is to add joystick control for both steering and speed control. I am hoping to get some feedback from the experience on this forum for how to accomplish the conversion. My daughter is six years old and about medium size for her age.
First off, what vehicle would you all recommend to convert? I am looking for something that is roomy as I will be installing a special seat or adding a five point harness. I went to several local stores and looked at vehicles in person, here are a couple I am considering:
Power wheels jeep (CBG61) - the seats look flat (no center ridge) in pictures but I could not get close to this one as it was up on shelf. This seems like a popular model on the forums with a lot of knowledge out there.
Power wheels dune buggy - looks like it has space but there may be a ridge for the seats, but seat backs are high enough that mounting the special seat or adding five point harness should work. If anyone has experience with this model and can let me know how suitable it is for conversion that would be great.
Conversion:
I have experience with programming and arduino projects, but have not done quite something at this scale. I have read many of the threads on here and done research on other sites as well. Here is the idea I have for what to do:
Joystick potentiometer - to control direction and speed. Hooked up to analog pins on arduino to read direction (left vs right) and speed (forward vs reverse).
Motor controller - Sabertooth 2X25 V2 - has arduino libraries and examples. Read several threads on here about using this particular model.
Steering - Firgelli FA-PO-35-12 2 inch linear actuator. Picked the 35 lb model as it has a speed of 2”/s so that steering would be responsive. The potentiometer would be read for location of the rod. The actuator would be controlled by 2 Sparkfun Beefcake relays which has 20A max hooked up to the arduino.
Read on here that at least the jeep only needs 1 inch movement to reach full turn - is that correct?
For parental controls I am going to attach a bluetooth adapter to be able to override the car from an Android phone.
Does this sound like a viable plan?
Are the vehicles good choices?
Thanks
I posted in R/C since this board seemed to deal with electronics, specifically the motor controller and linear actuator a lot. Let me know if this was not the right place.
First off, what vehicle would you all recommend to convert? I am looking for something that is roomy as I will be installing a special seat or adding a five point harness. I went to several local stores and looked at vehicles in person, here are a couple I am considering:
Power wheels jeep (CBG61) - the seats look flat (no center ridge) in pictures but I could not get close to this one as it was up on shelf. This seems like a popular model on the forums with a lot of knowledge out there.
Power wheels dune buggy - looks like it has space but there may be a ridge for the seats, but seat backs are high enough that mounting the special seat or adding five point harness should work. If anyone has experience with this model and can let me know how suitable it is for conversion that would be great.
Conversion:
I have experience with programming and arduino projects, but have not done quite something at this scale. I have read many of the threads on here and done research on other sites as well. Here is the idea I have for what to do:
Joystick potentiometer - to control direction and speed. Hooked up to analog pins on arduino to read direction (left vs right) and speed (forward vs reverse).
Motor controller - Sabertooth 2X25 V2 - has arduino libraries and examples. Read several threads on here about using this particular model.
Steering - Firgelli FA-PO-35-12 2 inch linear actuator. Picked the 35 lb model as it has a speed of 2”/s so that steering would be responsive. The potentiometer would be read for location of the rod. The actuator would be controlled by 2 Sparkfun Beefcake relays which has 20A max hooked up to the arduino.
Read on here that at least the jeep only needs 1 inch movement to reach full turn - is that correct?
For parental controls I am going to attach a bluetooth adapter to be able to override the car from an Android phone.
Does this sound like a viable plan?
Are the vehicles good choices?
Thanks

I posted in R/C since this board seemed to deal with electronics, specifically the motor controller and linear actuator a lot. Let me know if this was not the right place.