The sound the little RF Receiver made every time I pressed the remote was really bugging me, so before going to bed I decide to remove the little ‘siren’.

I tried searching the internet and even found the new support forum for the product, but nobody seemed to know if the bleep could be turned off programatically, so I decide to simply remove it.

The siren or buzzer is located in toward center of the board

I used a de-soldering tool to suck out the solder

I soldered in some wires just in case I need to re-attach the siren later to change the RF code. Sorry it’s such a bad picture

Much better 🙂

02/10/08 Update – Here’s the board with an LED added in place of the buzzer (don’t forget to add a resistor on the positive leg. Resistor size will vary and depends on your LED. Source voltage should be 12V, so as an example given a 3.3V LED with a forward current of 20mA, you’d use a 470 ohms resistor but something bigger will work too, but the LED will be a bit dimmer.)

Another big step forward tonight and I’m not really sure where to start or if I can remember everything I did.

Maybe it’s easier to say where I’m at – I now have a lot of the electronics installed in the body, from fuse block and power distribution to the speed controllers and sound system. I can now control the dome and periscope from my Vex transmitter and trigger sounds with my RF remote.

There was a lot of stripping of wires, routing them, testing, and moving stuff around to make it all fit on the back panels. I also installed a second Vex in the dome to control the periscope, and eventually it’ll control some servos on the pie-panels.

From the photo it really doesn’t look like a lot but there’s a lot packed in there

I’m now realizing that it may not be a good idea to run R2 around naked / skin-less at C4. I could easily see someone pulling on the wires and frying something.

Here’s a quick demo video as well.

You’ll notice in the video that the periscope doesn’t run up and down smoothly and it chatters. Some of it is due to the speed the motors run at which I can limit in the Vex, but there’s also a lot of play in the lift mech screw system itself which I need to fix somehow.

I still need to wire in the RoboteQ speed controller which will drive the feet, but you can see it at the bottom of the frame.

One problem I noticed again is that the Vex in the dome has problems receiving a signal. This maybe a big show stopper unless I can route the antenna somewhere else.

The 12 channel RF Remote also has a “problem”. The new models have a little speaker/siren on them which makes this awful bleep every time you press a button on the remote – I’m sure for most applications this is fine, but for R2 it’s got to go. You’d think it could be disabled easily, but I can’t find anything. I’m going to have to fix it before it drives me nuts.

I just upgraded the gallery software and now my thumbnails are all screwed up. Apologies while I go back and fix each post 🙁

My CF3 Sound Board arrived today as well as the 5″ horn speaker from Parts Express

Damn is this thing loud or what? Gerard had talked me into getting a horn speaker and he was right, it’s perfect. I’m going to have fun blasting this thing around C4.

The only issue is ACS were out of stock of the add on CF3 Contact Sense 24 board, so I’m limited only being able to trigger two banks of sounds for now.

Related Posts: 

• Mounting New Speakers
• Sound System Work

Got my pass today for Celebration 4 🙂

It only feels like last week that I was posting something similar about C3.

They did a real bad job of laminating it, but I’ll be swapping it for a volunteer pass anyway.

I must confess I screwed up the Dome Drive install early today. I’d rushed to get it done and in the classic DIY trap I had some extra parts left over. I had thought they may have been for the A&A frame install, and my setup was working RIGHT…. but it had a problem. The bracket was sagging and the extra parts were need to give it some extra rigidity. A quick email from Daren with some photos put me me straight.

Another mistake I made, I had pushed down the wheel too far onto the motor. It needs to sit up like this

However, once done I realized I had another problem. The power connectors to the motor were getting in the way of my new electronics panel. I can here you say “No problem, just flip the motor!”

Well I did try flipping the motor around, but the drive shaft is not centered, so now my wheel is further away and the spring which holds it against the dome bearing is too short.

It’s late and I’m going to sleep on it, but at least my new door closes!

I spent the first half of the evening working on the rear panel where I’m going to mount the electronics. I decide to switch out the alu plate for some acrylic – mostly for safety reasons. I’m going to have a lot of things mounted in this area, some of which could be very high current, and I really should try and isolate things the best I can.

I wanted to have easy access to the batteries inside the frame, so I fabricated some metal hinges for the panel out of some old water heater strapping. I was going to use 3/4″ nylon straps, but they were too tight on the vertical rods and the door wouldn’t swing. I ended up reused the nylon straps to make so latches for the left hand side.

I also split the door panel in two to get it to fit as far as I could.

I received my dome drive system today and I’ve already gotten it installed and working. I still need to wire it up to a speed controller, but that should be relatively easy and I’ll work on it tonight when I make the frames electronics mounting panel.