Friday, April 13, 2018

Air Hogs battle Tracker Hacked

I bought an Air Hogs "Battle Tracker" Nerf Missile launcher hoping to put on my Devastator tank.  It is obviously way too big for that!  However I still hope to interface it to an Arduino or Raspberry Pi and add the ability to track targets perhaps by Infrared.
Air Hogs Battle Tracker
The wired interface appears to be a voltage divider so each button returns a voltage.

Power and ground to the control panel is 3 volts (could be a low battery).  The normal return voltage on the two data lines is 1 volts.  
Pressing the "Fire" button changed PB1 to 2 volts.
Pressing "UP" and "Down" changes PB1 to 1.2 and 1.3 volts
Pressing "Right" and "Left" changes PB2 to 1.2 and 1.3 Volts.

Here is the control circuit board.  I am working on the schematic.

Here is the schematic diagram.  The resistors were measured in circuit so they are off a little bit.  The 51K resistors are labeled "513" as in 51K.  The "22K" resistors are 20K not 22K.  The values must be correct for everything to work.

I rebuilt a LH1500 solid state relay board to interface to the Nerf missile launcher.  I used this same board years ago to control a phone to light message waiting lights....

However when I tapped into the control board two resistors were destroyed.  R33 and R34 are gone.  I need to come up with a better way to interface to the control board.
I have added a 4 pin connector to the control board.  That way I can plug in the control board or the remote control circuit.  I am also rebuilding an iRobot vacuum cleaner to be the wheels for this project.
Air Hogs on iRobot Vacuum cleaner
I plan on butting a Raspberry Pi or Arduino on the red shelf with the batteries and controllers.  Here is the video of it finally working after about 2 months of experimenting.



1 comment:

Unknown said...

Lucky find for me. Just picked up a Battle Tracker for $2 at a thrift store. Would like to know how your project is progressing.