Hey guys, in this post I am going to show you how to make a professional look RC transmitter using Arduino Uno and NRF24L01. The body of the transmitter is 3D printed. I will be providing you with the list of components that you will be needing for this project and also the links where you can buy those components from trusted suppliers at a very cheap price and also fast deliveries to you. You will also find the circuits diagram for the transmitter and receiver below and also the programming code for the receiver and Arduino and also the STL file for the 3D printed body of the transmitter.

Homemade professional RC transmitter for drone and RC plane
Homemade professional RC transmitter for drone and RC plane
First of all, let's see the list of components that you will need for this project

List Of Components

Arduino Uno                   LINK HERE
AliExpress.com Product - UNO R3 Development Board ATmega328P CH340 CH340G For Arduino UNO R3 With Straight Pin Header
NRF24l01 + PA               LINK HERE
NRF24L01 Adapter         LINK HERE
Toggle Switch x 2            LINK HERE
Joystick x 2                      LINK HERE
3.7V lipo battery x 3        LINK HERE
BMS                                 LINK HERE
Boost Converter               LINK HERE
Switch                              LINK HERE

Additional parts in my project

Soldering Iron                 LINK HERE
Soldering Wire                LINK HERE
Mini Oscilloscope           LINK HERE
Brushless DC motor        LINK HERE
ESC                                 LINK HERE
7.4 V.Lipo battery            LINK HERE
Wires

That will be all the components that we need for this project. We will be using the brushless DC motor to test the transmitter with the receiver. You can buy 4 brushless dc motor and ESC if you want to make a drone with it. You can use a 7.4V to 14.8V lipo battery.

So let's now see the Circuit diagram for the transmitter.
RC transmitter Circuit Diagram
Transmitter Circuit Diagram
 Note that I have used the NRF24L01 with a power amplifier in this project, you can always use the normal one if you want. You can also see I added a balancer to the battery which will be used to charge the battery. You can see how to charge the Battery using BMS HERE.

I have also used a 3D printed transmitter body for this project. I will post the STL file for the transmitter soon here

Note that this transmitter 3D parts have still a lot of errors which I will correct in the future. For a simple transmitter, you can always use this.

Lets now see the procedures to make this Transmitter.

First of all, take the 3D printed body and add the toggle switch to it like shown below and take the bolt and tighten the toggle switch.

adding toggle switch to transmitter


Then, add the joystick. Note that the two joysticks are different. One has spring in all directions to return it to the middle and the other has spring in only one direction. The direction that does not have the spring can be used to control the throttle. So, depending on if you are a right-hand person or a left-handed person, you will place the one to control the throttle in the direction you want. I am a right-handed person, so I will place it on the left. Then place the red cover and screw it.

adding joystick to transmitter



adding screw to tighten joystick


full RC transmitter body


Now you have to connect the NRF adapter to the Arduino as shown in the diagram above. You can see that I have soldered the wires directly to the adapter and have not used jumper wires as it can easily come out. Now solder the adapter (Without NRF) to the Arduino.

adding NRF adapter to arduino

Note that I have not yet connected the VCC and GND pin of the adapter to the Arduino as we have to common all the VCC and GND first which I will show below.

connecting all VCC and GND wires together


Li-ion battery pack

Now we have to make the battery. I have explained how to make the battery pack in another post. Click on the link below to check it.


All the joystick, NRF adapter, and toggle switch need to be connected to the same VCC (5 V) and GND of the Arduino. So, for that, I am using a small piece of prototyping PCB board to connect and solder all the VCC pin together and another Piece of the prototyping PCB to connect all the GND together. Then, I am soldering another wire to the boards and connect it to the 5V and GND of the Arduino.

all Arduino uno connections

Now, I have connected a switch to the battery positive terminal and connected the battery to the Vin input and the GND pin of the Arduino as shown in the circuit diagram above.

arduino uno connections

Now we have to connect the analog pins of the joystick to the Arduino. Connect them to the Analog pins (A0-A4) of the Arduino as shown in the circuit diagram above.
. 
We shall now connect the Arduino to a PC or laptop to program it. Click in the link below to see the programming code of the transmitter


Upload the code to the Arduino and we will now finish the transmitter. Connect the NRF to the adapter and put the antenna through the hole. Stick the battery and the Arduino to the back cover of the Transmitter battery using tape or a glue gun. And now place both the front and back cover together and use a screw to tighten it.

So, here is our final Transmitter.

Homemade RC transmitter with arduino


Click on the next page to see the testing of the transmitter with the receiver we made in our previous post.