In the Maker Shed: BlinkRC

Hot Topics:

By Maker Shed
Posted 2011/03/08 @ 8:00 am
Category Computers & Mobile, Electronics, General, Robotics

The BlinkRC from the Maker Shed replaces your standard remote control receiver in your car, plane, or boat, and allows you to control it with your smart phone. The more adventurous can try creating an application on your computer that takes advantage of the open messaging protocol and the BlinkRC’s (3) output channels and (2) analog input channels. Now you can control a variety of different servo’s and sensors from almost anywhere that has WiFi or Internet access.

In the Maker Shed

Calculator Kit from Spikenzie Labs

Telegraph Decoder Kit by Spikenzie Labs

BrushBots

MAKE Rovera 4WD Arduino Robot Kit

5 Responses to In the Maker Shed: BlinkRC

Anonymous on March 8th, 2011 at 5:17 pm said:

Nifty – but quite expensive. Not sure where all the costs went into the project but if it could be lowered i would see a lot more hobbyists using it.

Reply ↓
Joshua on March 8th, 2011 at 5:54 pm said:

Cool, but as @straylit says, at over twice the cost of a conventional RC reciver this is not worth it. If wifi based control is your thing, why not use the xbee?

Reply ↓
Brandon Gruber on March 8th, 2011 at 6:21 pm said:

Or you could do just what I did and save your self the money by hooking up the RC transmitter to an Arduino with transistors and running a webserver on the computer to control the arduino…

Reply ↓
John Leimgruber on March 9th, 2011 at 4:51 pm said:

Great idea since 802.11 WiFi is ubiquitous with most new hand-held devices. The price isn’t bad for an out of the box small and clean solution. A ~$95 XBee Wireless Kit and ~$30 Arduino board is about the same cost and you still have dongles hanging out. Even just an Arduino WiFi shield costs ~$90 alone. Plus I’ve never seen a regular R/C receiver with analog feedback: time to add a couple distance sensors and make a self driving r/c robo car!

Reply ↓
Dan Overholt on March 9th, 2011 at 8:52 pm said:

This is quite expensive, especially considering that with a bit of coding you could accomplish the same thing with a “Yellowjacket Arduino” for $55 usd (which includes a Microchip 802.11 wifi radio):
http://asynclabs.com/store?page=shop.product_details&product_id=24&vmcchk=1

Reply ↓