Salvaging RC Parts from a Toy Mini Drone

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The AIRHOGS Video Copter is suspiciously cheap, palm-sized, and has a built-in camera.
It was under 2,000 yen at one point, which seemed too good to be true — and indeed, prices have gradually crept up.

For what it's worth: even brand new units sometimes don't fly at all, and others die after 2–3 flights. Quality is, shall we say, hard to comment on.

But as a parts donor? Excellent value for money.
Sourcing all these components individually at Akihabara would be quite a hassle.

So let's tear it apart immediately.



The outer cover opens with a precision screwdriver, but the tiny motors and other internals are firmly press-fit.
If you don't care about preserving the housing, the fastest method is to cut through the interior with nippers.

Here's what you get when you take it apart:

Components:

1. IR controller


2. IR receiver board


3. Small camera module


4. 3 micro motors + 2 pinion gears


5. LiPo battery

IR controller

Being IR, range is limited, but it has 3 channels. No strafing (lateral translation).

1. Single-axis analog stick for throttle (up/down)


2. Dual-axis analog stick for rudder (left/right yaw) / elevator (forward/back)


3. 2 buttons for camera control (video and still photo)


4. Trim adjustment dial

Build an IR copy device with Arduino + an IR receiver module and you can capture the controller's signals — enough to build a custom receiver.
I keep forgetting to write up the receiver build process on this blog, so I'll add it eventually.

IR receiver board

There are two PCBs in the photo — the smaller one is the IR receiver.
It's a very compact 15 × 30 mm board with a 12 mm tall IR receiver module mounted on it.

It looks like a bare receiver board, but it actually has a Senodia SZ030H gyroscope on it.
It may include automatic yaw (rotation around the Z axis) stabilization.
http://www.senodia.com/en/Product/detail/id/1.html

The board's I/O is:

1. GND


2. Analog output corresponding to throttle stick


3. Two analog outputs for elevator/rudder — one for each direction (left rudder: "throttle + rudder"; right rudder: "throttle − rudder")


4. Digital output for still photo button


5. Digital output for video button


6. Power input

Small camera module

Low spec, but very small — around 45 × 25 mm:

1. Camera
   
   Low quality image, but tiny. 640×480 video.


2. SD card
   
   The SD card slot isn't accessible from outside, but once you disassemble it you'll find a microSD inserted normally.
   The included card is only 128 MB, so you'd want to swap it out.
   The card is glued to the slot — carefully work a cutter blade under it to extract the card without damage.
3. USB
   
   Micro-B connector.
   
   Plugging it in allows normal PC access to the SD card contents.


4. Switch
   
   3-position switch, center = OFF.
   
   One side is power on; the other activates storage mode.

The physical interfaces are: a LiPo battery connector, a pass-through output connector (for the IR receiver), and control inputs from the IR receiver for still/video mode selection.

The mode control inputs likely just need a pulse of an appropriate duration — which means Arduino or similar could drive them directly without the IR controller, enabling camera control from any custom input source.
Wiring it to the Arduino in the Wii Remote RC car should make Wii Remote camera control possible.

3 micro motors

One is 15 mm, one is 10 mm. The smaller one is presumably for the elevator (lower max RPM).
The two larger ones have pinion gears attached.
Small-shaft pinion gears are hard to find separately, so I'm keeping these.

LiPo battery

200 mAh, 30 × 15 mm.


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With the right gears to match the pinion, this should be enough to build an RC car.