Using a Radio TX with 2 position 3rd Channel to Control 3 Racing Winch

Finally, managed to find some time to post this to share a simple mod that I did for the 3Racing Winch...

I am using the FlySky GT3B 3ch 2.4GHz TX for my honcho and the 3rd channel is only 2 position and cannot be used for controlling the 3Racing Winch directly.

So, I did a simple mod to allow the 2 position 3rd channel from the GT3B to control the 3Racing Winch via the Winch control circuit.

How it works
In short, the easiest way that first came to my mind was to use the 2 position 3rd channel from the GT3B to trigger a relay to simulate pressing of the push button on the winch control circuit.

To do this without PIC programming or AVR, or any other circuit, simplest way was to use a servo... There is a DC motor in every servo, so I just tapped the output from the servo circuit which supplies to the DC motor and used this output to trigger the relay. The relay output is used to open and close the switch on the winch control circuit.

That's all, nothing fantastic, but useful for me. :)

It's really simple... you can just skip the below part if you get what I meant from the above. :)
Below are just some details of what I did, hope it is clear enough.

What you need:

• Some basic electronic knowledge, soldering, soldering iron, etc... and some precious time...
• a micro servo (to save space)... any servo will do...
• 1x 6V relay

The winch controller that comes with the 3Racing Winch uses a push button to toggle the winch status... Retract -> stop -> Release -> stop -> Retract -> etc etc etc....

Step 1: Just solder a pair of wires across the switch and put a connector at the end as shown below. This connector will connect to the relay output pair when you finish Step 2. There's no polarity for the pair as it is just a open or close contact from the relay.

Step 2:
Dismantle the micro servo (in my case, the blue one bought from eBay for a few bucks) you will need to expose the servo's PCB board.
The servo already has a 3wire connector for connecting to the receiver, this wire will connect to the receiver's 3rd channel after the mod it done... at the PCB side, look for 2 wires that output to the servo's motor, this pair of wires is what you will need to tap out...Link this pair of wires to the relay's coil, and then tap the relay's output pair out and put a connector at the end as shown in the pictures below.
This relay output pair will connect to the winch circuit input pair done in Step 1.

Step: 3
After you connect up the relay output pair to the winch control circuit input pair, and of course, connect up the battery and winch etc... What you need to do next will be to adjust the End Point from the GT3B to achieve the optimum trigger duration of the relay...

That's all.. :)
Hope you guys find it useful.

Thanks for reading.