CCTV Remote Controlled Truck Project... for fun!

[WFS-Serv 0]

Hi fellas

 

In my spare time after the new year I want to start building my remote control camera truck project just for a bit of fun, but I need to try work out how this is going to work.

 

I have a very large RC Monster Truck which used to belong to my son, the remote control broke a long while ago and it's been gathering dust since. Very conveniently it runs on 12 volts and with the shell removed there is quite a lot of free space inside

 

So this is the base of my build, I have already stripped out the original guts, antenna and wiring. All that is left is 2x 12v motors, 1 motor to steer the front wheels and 1 motor to drive the rear wheels.

 

I was originally planning on running this on a Raspberry Pi which I bought all the bits for earlier this year, The Pi itself, an 8 way relay board, a mini 4G mobile router with ethernet, 12v to 5v usb outlet and a 12 volt 3.2ah alarm battery to power it all.

 

I run into quite a few problems when I tried to program the Pi, firstly the mobile broadband 4G router uses NAT so I cant get a proper external IP to use a websocket service to send commands to the Pi. The other issue I ran into is finding a way to control the car from an iPhone whilst being able to view the camera at the same time, I would have to use separate apps between the two, so at that point I scrapped the Raspberry Pi idea.

 

Now I have come up with a new idea. I had a reasonably small dahua 4 channel analogue DVR kicking about on the shelf, when I removed the casing I couldn't believe how small the motherboard was, its the perfect size and shape to fit inside the car. The motherboard has the RS-485 connection for PTZ control, so I will use the RS-485 to control the movements of the car, and the DVR has the P2P function which will eliminate the external IP problem.

 

So for the RS-485 to control the car I need a RS-485 decoder board. I have a couple of spare boards which use the same Pelco protocols as the DVR but they both require a 24v AC supply. I'm going to try find a way to modify the boards to run on a 12v supply and also remove & bridge out the rectifier. I only have a basic knowledge on how electronic boards work so I don't have a lot of confidence in my idea!

 

Does anybody know of some sort of relay/transistor board you can buy that will run on most popular protocols? If I could buy a suitable board that would make life easier!

 

Another question is the P2P, the problem I know I will face will be laggy controls as my iPhone will be sending its commands via an overpopulated Chinese server. I can change the P2P server address to what ever I want in the DVR settings, is it possible to run a P2P service on my own desktop PC? or is there a better way or a better server I could use? I know I might loose the ability to use my iPhone CMS app by using a different server, but the desktop client is quite good on my Windows 10 tablet and I can specify the P2P server settings in there too.

 

Once the build starts, Il post photos as I go along.

 

If successful, I might even post you guys the link to the DVR's web service so you can have a play with it! lol

 

 

Cheers

 

Dan

[WFS-Serv 0]

Iv just stumbled on this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/STRP0604-PELCO-board-controller-6-Out-4-In-12V-Relays-DVR-remote-RS-485-Camera-/262135820998?hash=item3d088332c6:g:ST8AAOSw8d9Ur7L6

 

This may fix the control side of things, and I like that the board can be customised to how it reacts to certain commands from the DVR

 

 

I just needs advise on how the P2P exactly works, or port-less alternatives that will work with a mobile broadband connection