Jump into the Field of Remote Control (RC): How Difficult?

[Peavey]

Since I last posted here, I've experimented with small DC motors, parallel and series circuits, messed with my electronic-building kit, and even did a little Job Shadowing (temporary internship) at a local electrical engineering place for school. I definitely want to make this into a profession later on in life (as I'm graduating high school in 13 days! Woot! lol.) Anyways, I was wondering, how difficult is it to jump into the field of RC? I'm not saying that I want to start building items such as RC airplanes or cars, but just study say like, having a switch that turns on a motor a foot away or so.

Thanks,
Peavey.

P.S. Sorry if this is in the wrong section or doesn't comply with the rules.

 

[berkeman]

Since I last posted here, I've experimented with small DC motors, parallel and series circuits, messed with my electronic-building kit, and even did a little Job Shadowing (temporary internship) at a local electrical engineering place for school. I definitely want to make this into a profession later on in life (as I'm graduating high school in 13 days! Woot! lol.) Anyways, I was wondering, how difficult is it to jump into the field of RC? I'm not saying that I want to start building items such as RC airplanes or cars, but just study say like, having a switch that turns on a motor a foot away or so.

Thanks,
Peavey.

P.S. Sorry if this is in the wrong section or doesn't comply with the rules.

Congrats on the graduation!

There are basically two remote technologys that you can play with -- IR and RF.

IR is probably simpler to start with, since you can see all of the waveforms with even a basic oscilloscope. You can buy modules for the transmit and receive parts -- they are basically the guts of TV remote controls and the receivers used in the TVs.

You can also get the modules for RF remote control, like are used in RC cars and planes. I'm guessing that they might be a bit more expensive than the simpler IR remote control modules, but I'm not sure.

You should be able to find both types of modules with a Google search. Let us know what you find!

 

[skeptic2]

There are a number of opportunities for jobs in remote control. Infrared remote controls are so common that building one amounts to little more than connecting a battery, keypad and LED to an IC. Radio remote controls are considerably more sophisticated. With radio remote controls you generally want a control that is sufficiently encoded so that stay signals can neither cause false operation nor jam the signal you are sending.

My first job out of college was with a company that made radio controls for industrial cranes. Since that is a very safety intensive operation, the controls had to be absolutely fail safe and there is a lot of design that goes into accomplishing that. Beyond that there are many applications and many more to come where radio controls are useful.

 

[Peavey]

Thanks for the replies.

My original idea for this was actually having a small remote control to control my fan's on/off. That's it. Not the speeds of the fan, just on/off. However, as of right now, that is just an idea. As I mentioned in the first post, all I wanted to do was have a switch that controls a 1.5V-3V DC Motor about 1-2 feet away. If I were to search for a schematic, what for and where (besides google) should I search for? I also plan on using IR.

Peavey