Procedure
Hardware assembly
Since you probably didn’t get your car new, it might be gross. Ours was. Pressure wash it if possible and paint it. The motors and electronics in ours were rusted so we took them out and painted the entire frame black with spray paint. We installed our motors on the original gearboxes after putting on the gears (ours had set screws in them so you just slide them on and tighten the little screw). Take the original back axel and cut it in half, or get one that is a little longer than the original. Slide the axel through each wheel and gearbox and use a lock collar on each side to keep it from slipping out. You are making a sandwich of parts that should go like this from the outside in: lock collar, hubcap, wheel, wheel spacer (the piece that locks into wheel), gearbox, washer, lock collar. We had to cut a little piece out of the bottom of the gearbox area so the collars could fit. Do this for each side. The idea is to get 2 separate wheel/motor assemblies so you can use tank style steering. You need to cut the axel or get a longer one because you need a little extra rod on the outside of each wheel for the outside lock collar. See pictures for a better idea. Use a jigsaw to cut out the seat and use the plywood as a cover for the motor compartment. That should do it for the rear. For the front, take off the entire steering assembly and wheels and bolt a small piece of wood under the “hood” and screw the caster to it. We had to cut a hole in the floor of the car to allow the caster to spin freely. Put all the painted pieces back on and that will do it for the hardware.
Electronics assembly:
Download the code onto the Arduino. Plug in the motor controllers to the appropriate ports. Solder the 2 resistors in parallel on a perf board. Attach the 2 yellow wires (motor output) on each controller to the 2 motor leads. Attach the positive red lead on the both controllers to the output from your perf board with the resistors on it and attach the black leads to the negative battery terminal. Attach the other side of your resistor board to the positive terminal. Plug the Arduino and webcam in the laptop (MUST be running Linux for my code to work). Remote connect to the laptop and go to the main php page.
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