Iam back, with a pink hummer toy

Its been quite some time since I last made an entry. Life got busy and didnt have the time to keep posting.
Many projects came and went I would of liked to have shared with you.
The train set sadly got put away.

One of the more fun projects Im working on is a power wheels conversion/upgrade.
Now that I have a child I wanted to give them a ride on power wheels. Due to their age it had to be remote control, even steering. Not many ride on toys have remote control, much less steering ability.
I was on the lookout for a used power wheels frame I could repurpose. Thankfully I found one on CraigsList last year, it was a pink Hummer type. Good condition, electronics were still working (but I didnt need them).

The plan was to rewire the car with 2x new motors, 12v. A steering motor, and accessories (lights, horn, reversing beep, etc).
Drive motors were not a problem, many people before had done this change, they were common. However the steering is another story, I had seen many ideas on the internet but they all used repurposed car motors or other types of linkages. One even used a very powerful servo. Tried a few things and nothing was quite working how I wanted. I had settled on a 12v motor with gears and to link it to the steeering column I would use a set of wire cable and pulleys to allow for the steering to "slip" in case i went to far to one side or if my child decided to try and steer.

Luck would have it, researching the parts for the motors I came across an AliExpress seller that sold complete kits for upgrading power wheels. https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1390037

They had the remote control, wiring harness, motors, and most important steering motor assemblies this solved my steering issue completely. I even went and got air filled tires.
The kit is similar to the one pictured to the right, except they have since changed to a fly by wire type system of controlling speed and direction, my kit (and previous kits) controlled speed and direction with a complex set of switch wiring and connections (similar to how the original power wheels worked). As I will detail later, I think they changed how it worked because with 2x drive motors the switches could not handle the stall/starting current (around 2x30a) and would overheat, sometimes one drive motor would not even start - as I found out the hard way after I had put everything togther.

Due to the problems with the wiring harness and control system of the kit, I ended up replacing everything with beefier cabling, and moving to a brushed rc motor controller and an RC transmitter. It runs very very nice, however it has its issues and carrying an RC transmitter around is not practical.

Hopefully over the next few posts I will outline what I did and where the project is headed.
I have started on a circuit that uses the kits remote control to drive the servo controllers, I blew up a mosfet in one of the controllers, and built a safety cutoff after having the mosfet blow and have the hummer run out of control.

Stay tuned !