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On our YouTube channel we actually have a lot of how-to videos that are pretty professional
and they show you guys a lot of things. But in this video I actually wanted to do something
fun, so I've had this RC car on my desk for a while now, and I actually am going to
try to control this with my Trueform waveform generator.
So the reason I'm using the Trueform generator is there are some really cool features in
that that are going to allow me to control this a lot better than with some of the other
generators that are out there. So that includes like AM modulation with two different channels,
arbitrary waveform generation, arbitrary waveform sequencing, and then finally USB drag-and-drop
to get some files onto the generator.
So let's go ahead and start off by trying to figure out how to simulate the signals
that are coming out of this remote in order to control this car. I'm over here at my
I'm over here at my
oscilloscope and I've taken apart the remote control to get access to the control lines.
And all I'm going to do right now is I'm going to press the backwards button and try
to capture that signal. I'm going to press stop.
And it turns out that this particular remote control actually had a 45 Megahertz clock
in there, so that's the carrier frequency that we're going to be using at. But looking
at the scope capture, it actually looks like we're using amplitude modulation in order
to control the car. So since I was pushing the backwards button the control signal for
the backwards is actually just four control pulses. These pulses are about 2 milliseconds
in width and 75-percent duty cycle. And then there are a number of 1 millisecond pulses.
Actually if you look it up, the number of pulses after the control pulse determines
the direction of the car. So since I was pressing backwards it actually turns out that 10 pulses
after this control signal is going to tell the car to go backwards. If I wanted to go
forward we would have 40 different pulses. Forward right would have I think 46 different
pulses and so on and so on. So the number of pulses is going to determine the direction
that this is going to go.
So since it is an amplitude modulation signal only I can do that pretty easily with my function
generator. So let's go ahead and do that with my function generator.
I'm ready to simulate my signal with my function generator with my 33600A Trueform series waveform generator.
The signal that we saw on the scope was actually an AM modulated signal, so to create that
modulation pattern I've created an arbitrary waveform which has four 2 millisecond pulses
for that control signal and then the 10 1-millisecond pulses for the backwards signal. So that will
be modulating my channel 2. So channel 2 I'm going to set up to be my carrier and let's
set up the amplitude to be 10 volts peak-to-peak maximum output and the frequency will be 45
megahertz, which you'll remember was the carrier frequency of this guy. And then to
turn on modulation I'm just going to press Modulate and use the source to be channel 1
and turn modulation on. So that's it.
So let's give it a try out and make sure that we actually can make this car go backwards.
Oh, I forgot to mention I also have this antenna to convert my power into something that is
transmittable. Let's go ahead and turn on channel 1 and watch it go backwards. So success.
But that's not really quite all that interesting. So let's go into arbitrary waveform sequencing
and actually make this car go left, right, and forward and backwards and do a few different
things. So let's go ahead and do that.
Now I wanted to create a sequence so I can actually make this car go backwards and forwards
a little bit and have some turns. What I have here is Waveform Builder Pro, and there are
the four different patterns for generating -- for going different directions. Right
now I've got forward for a few seconds, taking a right turn forward and then going
backwards for a little bit and then going backwards right for a little bit as well.
So we'll see how it goes.
If you want a little bit more information about sequencing we do have another video,
which we'll put down on the link on the bottom of this video, and you can check that
out. But let's go ahead and send this data to the instrument, and press Send.
Okay. So I haven't actually touched any settings on my generator, so all I'm going to do
is turn on the output. Let's move this laptop out of the way so it doesn't get run over.
And turn on the output and actually see if this does anything interesting. Go to the
local first. It falls off a little bit.
So you can see it kind of going backwards and forwards and a little bit. So I'm going
to play around with that a little bit more, try to maybe do an obstacle course or something
a little bit later.
But hopefully with this video you can see some of the benefits of Trueform waveform
generators as well as us having a little bit of fun here at work. So thanks a lot and I'm
going to go play a little bit more. Thanks.