(oh, if you don't see pix here, see
https://rctruckandconstruction.com/s...7&postcount=16 )
Saw one of these on the interwebs
https://www.bigsquidrc.com/exclusive...-sign-trailer/
[NB: I know nothing of this other than what you read there, just though it was cool.]
and as usual, I though, I could do that myself.
When am I gonna learn? It actually wasn't bad, other than some printer issues and fitting it all into a tiny space and making it work my way. Had to have trailer lights and an iBus plug to work like all my other trailers and work with all my trucks.
Anyway, the end result is fun:
And with the legs retracted and the head rotated sideways, all ready for travel. Ball hitch is sort of visible there on the sanding sponge, with safety chains of course. (The ball hitches are pretty safe, but I've had my big trailers pop a pintle hitch on uneven terrain in my yard, so the safety chains are actually useful
) Springs are chinesium D90 type, axle is similarly a Tamiya-style trailer type, tires from RC4WD, nothing exotic in that lot.
There's a plug with iBus and power to send turn signal info from the tow rig.
The display is an Arduino Mega with an LCD shield. The BigSquid thing used LED's, which are likely much brighter, but higher power drain. Plus the LCD is very flexible in terms of display (font sizes, colors, whatever.)
The Arduino makes it easy to read the iBus and run the turn signals. One problem with that is that some of my trucks have channel 1 reversed, because their tierod is behind the axle or whatever weird thing with the steering. The Arduino makes this easy, as it swaps the LED's back via software if channel 1 is reversed, so that the left turn is always left.
Managed to sneak a 3S TX pack into the "generator" box on the trailer, along with some switches. The big one on the left is power, and the little one on the right tells the Arduino whether to reverse channel 1. Finally, the middle one is a push button to switch between different displays. I mean, it's an Arduino, isn't their purpose in life to blink LED's (err, LCD's) ?
It has a few canned displays pre-programmed:
the push button just cycles through each.
Then I got bored one afternoon and added some animated options as well:
https://youtu.be/kglY3AF9x-k
https://youtu.be/14G4-jdmG54