The easiest way for me to create a wireless handheld system was to use an off the shelf RC controller-transmitter.

I chose the “AUSTAR AX5 3CH 2.4G Transmitter With Receiver For RC Car” for this experiment which I purchased for about $25 USD including shipping. The AUSTAR comes with A 3-channel receiver.

 

The circuit board I am pointing to is the main control board including the transmitter. The switches and pushbutton will only need to be accessed once so they will remain on this board. The motor speed pot and steering pot inputs are connected to this board. There are two connectors at the upper right-hand corner for this purpose.

The other circuit board is basically the power input (6VDC), power on/off and trim controls. The slide switch is the power on/off switch. The 3 black knobs are the trim pots. I will be removing this switch and wiring the circuit to a switch on the handheld controller box.

The push button switch (Aux channel) is the 3rd channel. The Aux channel is basically a binary output and I will use this channel to control the tilt actuator. As it stands right now this means my tilt will be either all the way up or down and nothing in between. I will be removing this switch and wiring the circuit to a switch on the handheld controller box.

The 3 trim pots will remain on the board since I will only have to adjust them once or not very often.

There are 2 LED lamps on this board that I may move to the handheld controller box. One is an indicator that lights when the unit is on and the other lets you know when the battery pack is low.