Vex Tx Rx system

[merbass]

Hey all, noob here. I'm designing my first ROV, and while I've got a fair amount of mechanical design experience, I also have a small mill and lathe, I'm new to the r/c or arduino type electronics. I think I've got all of the components sorted out, 3 brushless outrunners with esc's, onboard lipo's, and 3 onboard camera's that I'll toggle between. Thru all of my research, it seems that an arduino would be the ideal way to go, however, I have zero programming experience. So it seems that an rc setup may be the best system for me. It looks to me that this unit http://www.vexrobotics.com/products/acc ... -2153.html, would allow me to run two wires down to the rov for control. Is it as simple as wiring the brushless esc's into the rx unit, i.e., I wont have to do any programming? Does anyone have a wiring diagram of how this may work? Thanks!

[aquajack]

It would work well, but radio waves don't travel under water. Although there is a port to plug a phone line in the back of the tx and connect it to the rx reciver.
Hope this helps,
Jack

[merbass]

Thanks, that does help, I didn't want to buy the parts and then find out later that I couldn't make it work. I've never used brushless motors before (or built anything with r/c for that matter) and wasn't sure how they worked. I did pick the vex system specifically because of the ability to plug the Tx into the Rx.

[bikerbones1968]

RC gear works perfectly for ROV controls. Just forget the whole radio transmission and RF business and use the raw PPM/PCM/SPCM data that the TX sends to a RX. Two wires controls as many channels as the TX has available. The VEX is pretty much basic guts from a RC controller, minus the a few other features a proper computer RC controller have like channel mixing etc.

[merbass]

So since the VEX doesn't have channel mixing, I would NOT be able to have my horizontal thrusters spin in opposite directions with one stick movement, correct? Do you know of a Tx/Rx system that has channel mixing and has the ability to communicate via to wires rather than rf? Thanks!

[bikerbones1968]

Maybe the newer VEX TX RX systems are able to do mixing... Do you have a manual for exactly what your looking at?

[thegadgetguy]

Another option would be to get an external RC mixer, like this one:

http://www.robotlogic.com/IMX1_Users_Guide.pdf

Edit: I checked the VEX website, and it looks like this controller at least supports basic channel mixing:

http://www.vexrobotics.com/products/acc ... -2153.html