Wiring the electronics:
I ended up buying the motor controllers and the Arduinos on Ebay. The Arduinos ar Nhduinos, a Chinese clone that is a bit cheaper than the original Arduino.
Soldering the Monster motor shield:
I think the motor shield usually ships without the through-hole components soldered. The ones I bought also came without the screw terminals, so I had to use some that I had laying around. I used a quite big one on the battery connector, so that I can add a standard XT60 connector and leads to it:
I cut away the ISP header on the Arduino as it was in the way of the bigger screw terminal and I'm not going to use it anyway:
The monster motor shield then snaps onto the Arduino.
Adding a standard XT60 connector:
This is how the motor controller connects to the Raspberry Pi (USB) and a gear motor:
Adding a 3S LiPo battery and a 5V BEC. The standard servo connector on the BEC incidentally fits exactly onto the 5V header input on the Raspberry PI:
Finally, adding the wireless gamepad and receiver.
The setup isn't that different from a normal RC setup. In this picture, each of the components have the same role as their normal RC counterpart:
- Remote control: Wireless gamepad
- Receiver: Raspberry Pi
- ESC: Monster motor shield
- Battery: Battery
- BEC: BEC
- Motor: Motor
To control six gear motors, I use three motor drivers. To control them all at the same time, I use a self-powered USB hub:
And I made this crude power switch with three outputs:
