Parts and Assembly
This page details the parts needed and steps necessary for building the DeepPicar.
There are five main parts that are needed in order to assemble the DeepPicar.
| Part | Approx. Cost ($) |
|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi 3 | 35 |
| New Bright 1:24 scale RC car | 10 |
| Playstation Eye camera | 7 |
| Pololu DRV8835 cotor hat | 8 |
| External battery pack | 10 |
Male to female jumper cables and a strip of 12 male pin header connectors are also required.
While not required, the bottom half of a Raspberry Pi 3 case can be helpful in mounting the Pi 3 on top of the car. Also, a rechargable battery pack with a SM 2P connector can be used to power the motor hat in place of the RC car's power supply.
The RC car will have a monster truck body and a cover over the circuit board. These can both be removed by taking out the screws holding them in place. Once removed, the board should be visible, as shown below.
There will be two white connectors on opposite sides of the board, one at the front of the car and one at the back, which should both be disconnected. After that, look for three side by side soldered sections at the front of the board, and a fourth one to the far right of the board. Solder the male sides of two (differently colored) jumper cables to the middle of the three side by sections and the far right section. Remember which color is connected to each section. When done, the board should look like the following.
Afterwards, place the board cover back onto the car, without covering the connectors.
The DRV8835 motor hat should come with a 2x17-pin female header. Solder this into the corresponding place on the motor hat and a strip of 12 male pin header connectors into the 12 sockets found on the other side of the motor hat. When done, it should look like the following.
Once completed, place the motor hat onto the 34 leftmost pins on the Raspberry Pi 3 (there should be 6 pins left over), as shown in the image below.
In order to ensure that the camera can see the road as it drives, a stand is required so that it can see over the RC car's parts. In this tutorial, we use a handmade wooden stand but there are several other viable options (the Raspberry Pi 3's box can be easily used for this purpose). Once a stand is available, place and secure the position of the camera (and Pi 3 case's lower half if you are using one) onto the stand. For example, our stand can be seen in the image below.
Once assembled, place the Raspberry Pi 3 onto the stand.
Before placing the stand on the car, the motor hat needs to be connected to the white connectors from Step 2. Assuming the strip of 12 pin header connectors is oriented to be at the top of the motor hat, connect the car's front white connector to the motorhat with two male to female jumper cables such that the green and blue sides of the connector connect to pins 6 and 7, respectively, on the motor hat.
Next, connect the red and black sides of the car's bottom connector to pins 10 and 11, respectively, on the motor hat.
If you are using the RC car's power supply, connect the jumper cables soldered to the far right section and the front middle section (from Step 2) to pins 2 and 3, respectively, on the motor hat. Alternatively, if you are using a rechargable battery pack with a SM 2P connector, connect the ground side (typically colored black) to pin 2, and the other side to pin 3 on the motor hat.
Once finished, the connections should look similar to the image below.
The final step is to then place and secure the position of the stand on the car (in this case, we used hot glue), and connect the external battery pack to the Raspberry Pi 3. You will need to secure the external battery pack on the car (or inside the stand if possible).
With that, the DeepPicar has been fully assembled. To operate it, see the Setup and Operation wiki page.