[uglyduck]

Hello all!  In considering a radio setup to pair with the TCB (and after reading the wiki) I remembered another project I came across.  The creator made a PCB for a PS3 controller to utilize the XBee transceiver to control his projects.  It uses and AtMega328P  processor and I believe the XBee he used utilizes wifi to transmit data but I'm unclear on if this would work with the TCB.  I believe the receiver uses serial protocol (same as PPM?) which I think will work with the TCB but can anyone confirm that this sort of thing will work?

A link to the project:
http://www.proofofprinciple.nl/projects/long-range-doubleshock-controller-part-2-of-2/

[LukeZ]

Because the project is open source, it certainly could be made to work, but you would need to construct your own receiver. It appears the author abandoned the project some time ago, and never completed the documentation for the receiving side. He does list the protocol so there is enough information to build your own. There are two options - one could connect the receiving XBee directly to the TCB and write a new module in the TCB firmware to decode the data stream, or you could add a small processor on the receiving end that would convert the data from the XBee into SBus, which would require no changes on the TCB side.

So yes it is possible but not plug-and-play.

It's a great idea to use a PS3 controller. In my opinion an even better project would have been to adapt the FrSky protocol and make it an actual RC transmitter, compatible with all standard FrSky receivers (or any other brand of your choosing for which the protocol has been decoded, there are quite a few). This would be considerably cheaper (XBees are expensive and in his scheme you need two) and it saves you the work of building a custom receiver, you can just buy an off-the-shelf one. That would allow you to control not only the TCB without changes, but any other standard RC model.

[uglyduck]

I think your final suggestion makes the most sense and is really the result I would be after anyway.  Do you think the protocol could be added to the PCB by way of an Arduino sketch?  I'll do some research to see whats been done already.  maybe it has some application here too.

As an aside, the PS3 controller is appealing to me, and maybe others, because of its ergonomics.  It may also be attractive to younger generations who are already familiar with it.

[LukeZ]

The DIY radio protocol firmware would no doubt run on the processor in the PS3 controller (both projects use the standard ATmega 328) but there's not enough pins on the chip to do everything that both require. You would probably have to shoe-horn another Pro Mini into the PS3 controller to run the radio protocol code and interface with the the 2.4 Ghz Tx module. Then either modify the PS3 code to output PPM (what the radio project expects as input), or modify the radio code to accept serial input (what the PS3 code spits out).

Anything is possible with enough time but either way you're in for some hacking. If the PS3 guy were still actively involved it would be worth asking him to revise the PCB to integrate 2.4Ghz transmission into his design but it doesn't appear he's been active for some time. You could also post on one of the RCGroups threads as some of those guys might be interested in the same thing and maybe would be willing to work on it.

I agree with you the PS3 is a nice controller and would be interesting to use with RC models. I've spent many hours with it playing video games!

In a similar vein you could just buy the TBS Tango transmitter and be done with it, but it's way overpriced in my opinion.