Converting wireless remote to wired

jango955 · August 17, 2017, 4:09pm

Hello all! Second post here, second post based on controllers.

So i’m a primitive caveman who thinks wireless is work of the devil and will sooner remove my own scrotum with a teaspoon, than use a wireless controller.

Therefore, does anyone have any info on converting say, a 2.4ghz controller to wired? ( IE - Running the Transmitter output through the ESC bec output instead )

The other option i’m fond of is using a wired wii nunchuck, however i have 0 experience with arduino.

If anyone has anything useful to share, i’d appreciate it…just no more questions on why i’m not fond of wireless remotes… otherwise i’ll pray bad things for your children

Jinra · August 17, 2017, 4:12pm

Haven’t done it myself, but I imagine you’d just directly connect the potentiometer directly to the servo pins.

I personally feel that this is more dangerous as it has more room for error. A wire dangling and moving around all the time is under much more stress and can fray faster than a stationary one. There’s also the danger of accidentally breaking it with your leg or other environmental variables. Having to bail on your board while holding (or even not holding) your remote will probably cause damage to the cable and remote.

velox · August 17, 2017, 4:27pm

I’ve used a wired connection to communicate via UART when I started building my first board. The problem was that the cable and the connectors gets damaged quite easily by pulling/dragging etc like Jinra describes. Also the cable may be a problem if you need to jump off the board. Luckily there is an emergency timeout option in BLDC tool. Better go for a wireless remote. I’m using BLE modules now and so far I haven’t had any problems.

Jedi · August 17, 2017, 4:30pm

Use the wired nunchuck. The VESC has a built in wiiceiver, so plug n play.

And once you realize how silly it is to have a wired controller, simply swap out for a wireless nunchuck.

evoheyax · August 17, 2017, 4:38pm

The vesc does not have a built in wiiceiver. It has code to work with the wii nunchuck, but it does not have a receiver or transmitter in itself. You need to wire a receiver for the wireless one, I’m not sure about the wireless one though.

bmcm · August 17, 2017, 5:12pm

Right now I use a wired nunchuck but replaced the cable with a longer cat5e, and a jack that plugs into the UART port. I also have a wireless nunchuck whose receiver also plugs into that cat5 jack for easy swapping.

jango955 · August 17, 2017, 5:35pm

Any chance you could provide further information to how with works? does the nunchuck plug into an arduino board and then the esc? or have you a similar set up?

bmcm · August 17, 2017, 5:40pm

If you’re asking me, my current setup just has the nunchuck plug directly (with a cat5e male + female jack in between) into the VESC. However, yes, I do plan on having it (wired or wireless) plug into an arduino board over i2c, then convert to PPM into the VESC, and also have the arduino board read from the VESC over UART to then power an OLED either on the deck or in the controller.

jango955 · August 17, 2017, 6:02pm

I don’t suppose you could send me some details images of your wiring? specifically from the bec --> cat5 and then into the nunchuck itself

bmcm · August 17, 2017, 6:14pm

I’ll see what I can do (when I get home from work).

bmcm · August 18, 2017, 2:03am

You can find wiring diagrams for connecting the wireless receiver or the wired controller to the I2C port of the VESC. And it doesn’t matter which wires you map to in the cat5e cable - as long as they’re the same on both ends. There are 8 wires and you only need 4 (5V, GND, SCL, SDA), leaving 4 for future use (like an OLED )