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I have very little knowledge.

I want to make a car.

I'm going to use pic16f84 and I'm not going use any sensors. I just need the car to go forward.

But what materials should I buy?

Can I do it with just a servo motor and the pic? Which pcb can I use?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Why a PIC? Just a battery a DC motor and an on/off switch. :) \$\endgroup\$
    – kenny
    Feb 1, 2011 at 13:33
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    \$\begingroup\$ @kenny, no need to deter someone from learning microcontrollers. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kortuk
    Feb 1, 2011 at 16:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Kortuk, that's not my intention. But just trying to say how simple a DC motor is. \$\endgroup\$
    – kenny
    Feb 1, 2011 at 21:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ @kenny, can we use that for a BLDC motor? \$\endgroup\$
    – Kortuk
    Feb 1, 2011 at 23:30
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Kortuk, I never tried but I'm pretty sure you can get it to move. Typically those are used with a higher end controller to drive. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_dc_motor \$\endgroup\$
    – kenny
    Feb 2, 2011 at 14:11

2 Answers 2

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The simplest solution would be DC motors, a switch of some sort to turn the motors on ( Transistor or FET) power and a whatever the PIC needs to run.

Parts needed

  • dc motor
  • diode (1n4xxx) for each motor
  • NPN channel FET or transistor, depends on motor
  • PIC and whatever it needs
  • few resistors, pull up and current limiting
  • PCB - any proto or perf board of your choice
  • power of some sort ( battery, solar panel, wall wort)

as for the servo idea, it would work if you have a continuous rotation servo.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ A car that's powered from a wall wart would have a somewhat limited range... \$\endgroup\$
    – Jeanne Pindar
    Feb 1, 2011 at 23:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ Personally, I prefer to use an H-bridge instead of bare transistors (and diodes), but it's functionally the same. \$\endgroup\$
    – MBraedley
    Aug 9, 2011 at 17:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ if they have an H-bridge chip cool but if you have a whole bunch of transistors then why not make your own :) \$\endgroup\$
    – jsolarski
    Aug 10, 2011 at 0:57
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As suggested, to make the car go forward you could just use a battery and motors.

As for the 'forward' aspect: the most obvious way to make a car is to use two geared motors to driver a left and right wheel, but this will result in a car that moves approximately forwared, plus or minus maybe 90 degrees :) Powering the two wheels from one motor and using a servo motor to steer the other (front?) wheels is more liklely to result in a straight line movement.

As for the PIC, please consider a less stone-age one. Just a few suggestions: 16F886, 18F2520. Both are MUCH more powerfull, 28 pin, and cost less than a 16F84. (Does anyone still sell those chips??)

From your question I think you should consider something simpler than a uC-controller car, maybe google for 'beam robot'? The term beam is used for robotic vehicle like thingies that use very very simple hardware, and often solar panel power.

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