I’m a total newbie to Radio Control (RC) stuff, and I’ve been searching the net for good articles that focus on robots.

For basic information there’s a lot of good sites out there explaining things like the transmitter, receiver, servos, batteries and frequencies etc. but they focus on RC Car, Planes or Boats, as opposed to Robotics which has it’s own set of issues.

I went to a local hobby shop yesterday hoping to find an expert who could help but didn’t get very far. They specialize in RC planes/cars and I had high hopes, but they were overwhelmed when I tried to explain how many motors and gizmo’s I needed to control in my R2. They did have some good pricing on 6 and 9 channel equipment, but couldn’t help when I started to ask about how to multiplex channels etc. and had no clue when I asked them how noisy the speed controllers they had for sale.

So last night I stumbled upon this great robotic website for newbies. It’s not fancy but it has a LOT of good information I’m trying to read through right now and it’s helped me to start to understand some of the cryptic posts to the R2 Builders Group when people talk about their RC setup. The site even has a great section on 12V vs 24V motors. One note though, the site sells stuff too and I’m not recommending anything they have for sale, just the great FAQs they have.

I also finally opened up my Vex Robotics kit last night, which is a cross between a RC kit and a micro-controller which can be programmed to do functions. It has 6 channels so will cover basic control of an R2, i.e. wwo channels for the drive motors, one for the dome, and three spare for things like Utility Arms, Periscope etc.

I’m still hoping to get into programming it to give R2 some autonomy or ‘life’ e.g. If I ask him to raise the Periscope he’s go through a sequence to raise, it play specific sounds while the thing rotates – as opposed to me having to do all that manually via a remote.

I’ll try and keep this entry current with any good sites I find on Robotic RC info I find.