Tonka Summit FPV Build

[rc-martin 218]

Because of Photobucket's new rules all my photos have disappeared from this thread. Anyone interested in seeing the missing pics can see them here  https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/member.php?u=518764

 

A couple of years ago I came across some videos on Youtube of a FPV truck that had been built using a Traxxas Summit as a base and mounting a vintage 1970's Tonka body on top. The beauty of this combination was a pretty scale looking go anywhere off road truck that you could immerse yourself into driving.

I had already got most of the FPV gear from a quadcopter I'd built but wasn't really using and I'd thought of adding some FPV gear to one of my cars but they where all pretty much too small, so the Tonka Summit project seemed to fit my needs ideally.

I have been sharing my progress over the last couple of years on the Tonka Summit thread on the rcgroups forum but thought I'd share my build here also.

 

This is what I started with, Traxxas Summit, Tonka Adventure Buggy, Frsky Taranis Radio, Fatshark Attitude Goggles, Gopro Hero 3+

First thing to do was to cut up that 30 year old Tonka!!

Some Tonka bodies have rivets, some have screws, seems like I got lucky and got a Tonka with the screws.  

Marked up ready to start cutting

Also had to grind a small rivet off just forward of the rear arch

Seperated

First holes drilled for front body post.

I tried making the first body post hole by drilling small holes and trying to join them up then file square with needle files but the drill kept skipping into the othe holes, I did the others by drilling a single 6mm hole in the middle and filing square, this was a much easier method.

It Fits!!

Next step, trim the inner body.

 

[rc-martin 218]

Started to trim the inner body by first marking out roughly where it needed to be. Then drilling and joining the holes up.

Then it was a matter of making small cuts and trimming it till it fitted nicely with a little clearance all around.

Finally fits! Now for some FPV gear!

[rc-martin 218]

Part of the fun of the build is making your own parts, the camera gimbal is one of those, it incorporates pan and tilt movement to enable you to look around whilst you're driving

Today has seen some head scratching, I've been trying to make the pan and tilt assembly for the Gopro. I wanted to make it as compact as i could and also didn't want to cut the seats to fit a servo in them. I'm going to try and mount the pan servo behind the seat and operate the gimbal with a linkage rod.

Managed to fit a couple of 12x6mm bearings into the tilt axis.

I've made the gopro sit lower in the pan mount since I took this photo.

Made a cut for a small tang on the rear to hold a rubber band.

[rc-martin 218]

A short video showing the gimbal working

 

[rc-martin 218]

 

[rc-martin 218]

After seeing someone elses dashboard lights I wanted some of my own, ordered some green and red LED's with chrome bezels and fitted them in the dash where the small gauges are.

I'm using a micro servo to operate the LED's, if you remove the motor and wire the LED's to the motor wires then it makes a great switch. Wired one LED positive and the other LED negative wires together so when I switch between Hi and Lo gears one of the LED's lights up. It's really simple.

Guts removed from micro servo

Servo switch mounted behind dashboard

I'm going to use the other LED to indicate the Diff lock engaged.

Thought I'd show my extended antenna mount also. Removable pole which slots into the aluminium tubing.

Also made an aluminium servo bracket for my steering wheel servo as it was only held in with double sided tape and it kept on falling off.

[rc-martin 218]

Added some voltage meters so I can monitor battery voltages

Eyes on the bracket boys!!

[rc-martin 218]

Had a day tidying up the front compartment as it was starting to resemble a birds nest, I robbed a Y lead from my reverse camera switch so I could finish the dashboard and get the diff lock led working.

Also fitted my lipo alarms as well. I may try extending the warning led so it's on the dashboard as well in the future.

Another little video

 

[Jason1145 3986]

Beautiful bracket!

Top job, that FPV drive round the park was a right laugh, can you imagine it getting stuck somehow far from base? Or worst case it being picked up by someone half a kilometre away from you?!

[yogi-bear 2321]

this is an awesome built thread, I will be stealing ideas! 

I saw one of your other videos where your drive through the streets, waving to kids, that was too funny!

[rc-martin 218]

9 hours ago, Jason1145 said:

Beautiful bracket!

Top job, that FPV drive round the park was a right laugh, can you imagine it getting stuck somehow far from base? Or worst case it being picked up by someone half a kilometre away from you?!

The Summit is a good base as there's not a lot that will stop it in it's tracks, it has a high and low ratio gearbox and also remotely selectable diff locks so it can pretty much climb over most obstacles, that being said though, if you roll over you're pretty much stuffed.

It getting stolen is quite a big worry but so far everyone I've come across while driving have been nice. Its fun to the surprise on their faces when they're looking around to see who's controlling it.

It also weighs about 10kg so it's not exactly a lightweight to just pick up, oh and I've just fitted a new horn. 136db!

[yogi-bear 2321]

those mirrors are handy and just out of interest do you intend on hooking the camera servo up to head tracking? I'm assuming you're wearing some sort of FPV goggles when driving.

[rc-martin 218]

Thought I'd add a few pics of my Groundstation relay.

It's purpose is to receive the video signal from the truck which is transmitted at 1.3Ghz frequency, my video goggles work on the normal 5.8Ghz frequency that most people use so the 1.3Ghz vide receiver output goes to the input of a 5.8Ghz video transmitter which then relays the signal to my video goggles. The whole groundstation relay is elevated to about 4M on a tripod to get good video range.

It's a RMRC 1.2/1.3ghz vrx, coupled up to a 200mw 5.8ghz vtx and also has a DVR.

Antenna is a ibcrazy Blue Beam Airscrew.

I have a small fan mounted on top to keep the internals cool and have utilized a Gopro mount to fasten it to my 4m tripod.

[rc-martin 218]

2 minutes ago, yogi-bear said:

those mirrors are handy and just out of interest do you intend on hooking the camera servo up to head tracking? I'm assuming you're wearing some sort of FPV goggles when driving.

I have got my radio setup for headtracking but I rarely use it, it is impressive to show off but I prefer to use the controller sticks to look around. I have it set up so I use the left hand stick to look around and use just the right hand stick to control the truck. As I'm rarely driving really fast it's quite easy to control with just the one stick.

I started off with some Fatshark Attitude FPV goggles but have since upgraded to some Fatshark Dominators. I also have a small lcd screen that anyone can watch

[rc-martin 218]

One of the best things I've bought is this little desk top 3d printer, it's great for making small parts. It's not an all singing and dancing model but it works fine for me and what I need.

Got myself a Mini Fabricator, I'm in Tonka Summit 3d printing heaven

Just printed some covers for the back of my mirrors to hide the holes.

New gimbal

[rc-martin 218]

After watching Pintopower's  Ampro channel on youtube review of light controllers I thought it would be good to add some lights to the truck, I had a few channels left unused on my radio so could use these to control the lights instead of using a Y lead into the throttle and steering channels.

I used my 3d printer to make the surrounds and the new grille, they fit snuggly over the old raised lights and grill and only sticks out 4mm.

I was going to drill and file them but realised early on that it would take me ages, so off to the shop I went, I've always thought about getting a rotary multitool and this was the perfect excuse

The lights I used are from 2 lightbar assemblies

Headlights

Indicators

Lights masked ready for cutting

Big holes :eek:

First one

Back of light unit

Fitted

I've also split the original Summit lights into pairs and wired them into the controller so now on the front the outer lights come on at half brightness and the spotlights are off and when i flick the switch they all come on full brightness. This also make the mode switch more impressive.

On the rear I removed the two inner red LED's and replaced with white, these are also wired into the controller so the outer lights come on at half brightness and when i brake they come on at full brightness and when i reverse the white LED's illuminate

[rc-martin 218]

For the last year I have been toying with the idea of adding a working speedometer to my FPV Tonka Summit. I'd seen a few YouTube videos or people making their own using an Arduino and a small Oled digital screen but the more I looked at it the more daunting the programming side of the Arduino became so I put the idea on the back burner.

A few weeks ago I had a bit of an idea that cycle computers are as cheap as chips but they're generally a bit on the large side to fit in the small area of the Tonka dashboard, especially as the steering wheel is bang in the middle of it.

But what if I relocated the steering wheel lower? I mean it's not exactly a scale look is it, a steering wheel coming straight through the dashboard?

Next job was to find a suitable cycle speedo, a quick search of eBay and the smallest screen I could find was probably this one

A couple of days later and it was here.

A bonus after reading the instructions was that the wheel settings went right down to a 10cm wheel circumference and as the Summit tyres are approx. 55cm circumference I would get a pretty accurate speed reading if I could get it to work.

The next step was to get inside it and have a look whether or not it was going to be usable, it was well sealed together and the only way I could see of getting into it was to cut it open

The printed circuit board was held to the front panel with 4 small self tapping screws which when removed separated all the parts. I was a bit disappointed because I thought the lcd screen would be physically attached to the circuit board but it wasn't, it was held in place by the front panel and two conductive rubber strips which make contact with the pads on the circuit board.

I hadn't wanted to use the front panel as I was going to 3d print my own so was a little stuck at this point.

Back of lcd panel showing the rubber strips

The only way to get the lcd to work would be to clamp the lcd and circuit board together using the original front panel, so out came the dremmel and the front panel was whittled down to its bare bones.

Looking at the circuit board I noticed that there wasn't anything on the board underneath the set and mode buttons, so out came the dremmel again!

As I wouldn't be using the original handlebar mount I cut it off and soldered the wires directly to the board where the contact pins where

Removing the outer case also meant I couldn't use the original 1.5V button battery so I soldered a couple of leads onto the battery terminals and used a AAA battery to power the unit

Next I had to fathom a way of adding it to the Tonka dashboard, I created a 3d design using the web program Tinkercad, the new speedometer surround also incorporated the new steering column support.

This was then printed out and the trimmed down cycle computer front panel was glued to the back of the newly printed panel. The lcd screen and circuit board where then screwed onto it.

To get it all to fit meant cutting a large section from the Tonka dashboard. :eek:

But once fitted it started to look better

Lowering the steering column also meant I could reverse my steering servo linkage from below the wheel to above it and also meant I could do away with the servo reverser that was needed before.

I could have pretty much left it like this but it was awkward getting to the set and mode buttons on the circuit board to set it up and use the computer properly so off I went to Maplins (like Radio Shack) for a couple of push switches.

I removed the old push buttons off the circuit board and soldered some small gauge wires onto the contacts and then to the new push switches. I then mounted these to the top of the dashboard.  Now it's really easy to use it

Next up was actually getting it to read, I had to mount the reed switch onto the front wheel carrier somehow and the magnet to the wheel.

After a bit of head scratching I decided the best position was on the front of the upright and I cut the cycle mount so it would fit neatly against the upright. I then drilled a hole through the mount and into the upright and held it in place with a 3mm screw.

And with the magnet glued inside the wheel it gave just the right amount of clearance.

And it works!! :D:D:D

[rc-martin 218]

I was on Facebook a while back and on one of the groups I'm on on there someone had posted a picture of a horn they'd fitted to their real car, it was a small compact air horn that sounded great for it's size.

I thought it would be a stretch to get it to fit in the front of the Tonka but I went ahead and bought one anyhow just to see how big it was. If it turned out to be too big I could always fit it to my classic Mini instead.

The horn arrived a few days later and as I expected looked far to big to hide under the hood of the Tonka so I put it to one side to fit to my Mini when I get round to it.

Yesterday my youngest daughter was asking what it was so I got my 3s lipo battery and connected it to the horn to show her  Wow! that thing is loud!!! There is no way I am not fitting this now, I have to find a way

I removed my old siren that I have fitted in the truck and started to look how I could shoehorn the new horn in

With a bit of cutting I figured out that it would actually fit into the front compartment quite neatly, so out came the dremmel again.

Old Siren Removed

Just a little cutting required :eek:

Horn In

Heavy Duty 12V Relay

Servo Operated Micro Switch

Side View

Front View

All important sound test

[yogi-bear 2321]

that speedo is brilliant!

I can see you scaring a few people with that horn, looking forward to some funny vids!

[rc-martin 218]

19 minutes ago, yogi-bear said:

that speedo is brilliant!

I can see you scaring a few people with that horn, looking forward to some funny vids!

Had a bit of trouble with it reading the reed switch so converted it to use a Hall sensor instead, It was also a little difficult to see so I added a couple of spare LED's from my light controller to back light the LCD display

This is how I mounted the hall sensor

So had to design a new mount to hold it on

Next I had to find a way to attach the magnet

[Darat76 265]

amazing build this, lots of things I'd like to use in my own builds, but lack the skills and patience to do this sort of thing. for your speedo, might I suggest a counter balance for the magnet?

[rc-martin 218]

On ‎14‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 10:49 AM, Darat76 said:

amazing build this, lots of things I'd like to use in my own builds, but lack the skills and patience to do this sort of thing. for your speedo, might I suggest a counter balance for the magnet?

the magnet weighs next to nothing really but if I do experience any vibrations i'll add a bit of extra weight opposite the magnet.

[_oliK 108]

This is so amazing...and these voltage gauges just give it instant Doc Brown-awesomeness.

[rc-martin 218]

A couple of pics from yesterdays outing at Broxtowe Model Car Club at the Iconic RC meet.

 

[Grastens 2795]

Plenty of hallmarks of an epic build here: lots of creativity, ingenuity, scratch-built and custom parts, body/chassis swap... Really enjoying this project! Your work is incredible