Hi
My 4yr old received a MN99s RC crawler from Santa. She’s having trouble using the pistol grip controller that requires you to push your finger forward to go in reverse. Her hands are small and can’t extend the finger enough.
I think a stick transmitter would be easier (the type with two joysticks). Ideally not too large and cheap as it’s only $60 car.
Any suggestions on what to buy?
(I’m fine working with electronics if I need to swap out something/solder etc).
I've seen people make adaptors so kids can use those types of controllers before. A quick Google search found this as an example on Etsy
Not sure if this particular one is suitable for your controller, but might give you a starting point to search for one that fits.
Or the idea to MacGyver something yourself
Cool, my mate has a 3d printer. Now to find one that fits!
Not really. These are RTF units. They are usually cheap units with all in one control boards.
As apsilon has suggested above, if you want a different controller, you would have to go on a major rewire of the unit with a different controller and hand set…
The alternative would be to cut a piece of foam that fits in the trigger hole that fits her smaller fingers in. This will move the reverse trigger closer. This is what I did for my nephews and daughter when they wanted to drive my RC cars with pistol grip controllers.
Hey, spacing out the front of the trigger with foams a great idea. Thank you
Gday
MN99 expert here.
"Expert"
my twins had 1 each at the age of 3 for santa last year (2022). They used it fine till they turned 4. Their little hands were able to manage it.
They DID have the same problem your daughter has of the reversing. They would just stop, turn the controller around, reverse, stop, turn the controller around, and resume.
Top tip: do NOT buy spare parts from aliexpress. They are SHIT.
After 9months the driveshaft/axles gears stripped. I should have bought just the metal rod + gears, but no, i bought the bigger 370 motor, the metal drive shafts, the metal axles.
outcome:
- one tyre out of each car would randomly pop off. the screw holding it to the axle wouldnt grab hard enough
- on both cars, a drive shaft would pop out randomly.
- mainly on one car, but in part the other, the driveshaft gear wouldnt engage the axle properly and would either free-spin, or jam. I had to fashion a thin washer out of soldering metally bit to help, but would still jam.
- the steering would have more room to move, so i had to remove the front bumper.
- eventualy - on one car, the ECU fried from the extra power draw, and then the other kid wouldnt play with his anymore cos his brother's was broken.
So the car is great. Great for learning.
the spares are NOT worth it.
I also have 7 batteries for it now.
If you're in Syd, i can prolly spare some.
Some random facebooker is buying both broken/part working cars off me for his "project" and may not be getting all the batteries.
i have replaced my kids mn99 with a deerc 9500e; one of which malfunctioned after too much puddle action :( but it seems to have come back to life. They use the same battery (but higher discharge rate and capacity) as the mn99
Also, be careful with remote throwing. These remotes are very fragile
one is held together by 3d pen "ink" and epoxy glue.
the other just by super glue and tape
Hi, thanks for the details. I had considered modifying it as she’s very much into technical things but I’ll avoid it based your experience.
Flipping the remote is probably a good ideal and might help her with spatial awareness. She’s unbelievably uncoordinated:-D
We are located in Adelaide otherwise would have grabbed the batteries off you.
Hope you have better luck with your new cars!
Thanks again for the detailed post!
Not familiar with that particular car but basically your two choices are find a transmitter that's compatible with the receiver in the car and pair them and off you go or buy a transmitter and receiver and swap the receiver out and then away you go. Should all be plug and play assuming it's nothing hugely proprietary.
Having said that, I'm not sure if they make ground transmitters with stick controls any more so you may need to use an aircraft one and not sure of any difficulties/issues there.