FPV RC Car
So I installed an FPV system to my RC car! Writing about how I did so and showing you a demo of the final result. 2021-10-17
The Idea
About two months ago, I bought a 1:8 scale RC car, the DHK Maximus. Below are a few pictures of this car.
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Then, one morning, I remembered I had an extra drone camera and VTX combo which I never ended up using. As you likely already know, I built an FPV racing drone from scratch about a year ago... and so I thought:
Why wouldn't I make my RC car FPV-capable?
How I Built It
Counterintuitively, adding FPV to an RC car is surprisingly easy. I used the Eachine TX02, which includes both a camera and a video transmitter. This way, all it neads to function is a 5V constant voltage supply, and, as it turns out, pretty much all hobby-grade RC cars use a 5V receiver. With this in mind, I cut a servo cable to length and I plugged it straight into my RC car's receiver:
Then, I made a hole large enough for the camera lens through the car's body and I used some high-quality double-sided tape to stick it in place. Here's how that looks:
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After connecting the cables together, it worked flawlessly! This is slightly beside the point of this post, but I thought I'd include this tip for anyone looking to buy this car: locking the center differential drastically improves its performance. Anyways, below is a demo video of me driving it around on campus through the newly installed FPV system!
The Limits
Unfortunately, this system isn't perfect. The main issue is that the transmitter-receiver combo that came with the DHK Maximus has a very short range, meaning that the signal to the car often cuts out when it is more than 50 meters away. Because of this, I still prefer driving it around with my goggles off to be able to have a better view of what's going on around the car. Regardless, I can now say that I own an FPV RC car!