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I am very new to electrical engineering but I wanted to make a project using a remote controlled car.

Is it possible to connect the laptop to the remote control via a wire/cable and if so which? Alternatively, is it possible to skip the middle man and directly send a signal from the laptop to the remote controlled car via a signal. For this particular project I didn't want to use raspberry pi and I also wasn't sure I wanted to use the Internet like: building a remotely controlled remote controlled car :)

Many thanks for any help or suggestions!

Michael Williams
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    is it possible ...? always has a simple yes answer ... not a very useful question ... please ask about what you actually want to know – jsotola Aug 21 '21 at 00:10

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Since the Parallel Port disappeared, computers do not have useful GPIO. And, I cannot think of anything useful without additional hardware.

I understand and support what you are trying. Thus, as an expert, I can tell you the minimum effort needed to achieve the least of what you want.

  1. You will need any sort of programming language, script language, or even just a serial terminal (serial console).
  2. You need some hardware that can press the remote control buttons, though not mechanical. That is this USB-Relay output board, $14.79 from Amazon. I have not personally experienced this product, but only one I can find, and has USB-serial converter (likely FTDI) that your computer likely find and install driver at once.
  3. Open up the remote controller, and wire the relay COMM(common) & NO(normal open) outputs to the controller buttons you want to control.
  1. Write your code to turn on and off the relay contacts, thus operates the buttons.

Cool thing is, you can operate it from The Internet, while monitoring it on a video cam.

jay
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