In the Maker Shed: BlinkRC

Computers & Mobile Robotics Technology
In the Maker Shed: BlinkRC


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.

10 thoughts on “In the Maker Shed: BlinkRC

  1. Anonymous says:

    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.

  2. Joshua says:

    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?

  3. Brandon Gruber says:

    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…

  4. John Leimgruber says:

    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!

  5. Dan Overholt says:

    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

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