Motorized toolbox with remote control

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Bogan

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Hello all, I've joined this forum to get some input into my dumb idea to have my workshop toolbox motorized and controlled with a wireless remote

So while joking about the size of my toolbox with the guys in the workshop ( I'm a diesel mechanic} the joke / idea got stuck in my head about
having my toolbox drive around like a R/C car around the workshop and i couldn't stop thinking about how i would make it work.

So the idea i have is to get a mobility scooter cheep of marketplace to provide the drive / motherboard controls which should be strong enough
to move my toolbox at a slow speed ( don't want a fast toolbox so it doesn't tip over) and i would adapt a wireless controller for speed / brakes.
They also have a function to disable the drive from the wheels so i can push it if i desire with out fighting the motor.

Making a frame to attach everything too such as a battery and add on some steering using various parts from the scooter
i would then attach a linear actuator to the center of the sway bar on two pivots to move the steering left and right

So my question to you is do you think this could work, or am i biting off more than i can chew?

For what its worth, i shouldn't have any problems doing any fabrication / welding but my electrical skills are basic and of course I'm not
looking to spend a fortune to make this happen. I believe i could get a decent scooter for about 200-500 bucks, a actuator like i have pictured
would be about 50 bucks and a wireless remote probably for around 30-40 bucks.

as for the frame / steel part i've got lots of scrap / left overs at work i would piece together and paint when done

Attached are some photos of my toolbox, and a sample of the scooter i would be looking out for and a actuator
I don't know how much my toolbox weighs in at, i guess around the 200-300kg mark to give some idea of the strength needed on moving / steering

At this stage I'm more brain storming on why this couldn't work / what things to look out for before i start shopping around and seeing what i can get.

Thanks in advance for any help.
 

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Welcome to the forum.

The motors and gearing on those mobility scooters are designed to move a 100-300 lb person around, plus the weight of the scooter. You are going to be trying to move a lot more than that. I had a Snap-On box about the same size as yours, but only a small machinists middle and upper chest. It was HEAVY, and I am sure yours is a lot heavier than mine was. I am not sure if the motors could handle that much weight.

Before you get real deep into this project, I would see if the mobility scooter will even push your toolbox easy enough. Another concern would be the weight of the box on top of the motor/gearbox assemblies, which is a load far greater than they are designed to support. Bearings and races are going to be taking a beating, not to mention the cast aluminium housings they are mounted in.

The tires are probably going to need to be upgraded as well if you are thinking of using the scooter wheels. You are likely going to want a solid tire. If you got a leak in one it would really suck to come in one morning and find your toolbox tipped on its face. Plus when you turn, just the weight of the box on top of air filled tires will have the box teetering. Kennedy makes a tool cart for their toolboxes with air filled tires (dumb idea), and if you had a stacked box, it was very scary when turning or going over uneven surfaces.

As for the steering, you could get by with just castors in the front and use the rear motors to do the steering. Just a thought. That would give it more tendency to want to tip when you steered it though than dedicated front steering. Those linear actuators are pretty tough, so as long as your lever used for the actuator to steer the wheels is long enough, I think that would be a good setup.

@Greywolf74 could give you a lot of help here as he built a badass RC mower using the same kinda components you are trying to use.

Oh, I just remembered something. A guy at the first machine shop I worked at had a ridiculous toolbox even bigger than yours. It was motorized. You might look into that and see if you could source those parts. It was a Snap-On. Other things to look into are Pit Boxes, like used by F1 snd other race teams. The components they use could handle the load 😉
 
You dont need an actuator for steering. If you get parts from a wheel chair off of ebay (I used parts from a Permobil C300 and the M300 I believe is basically the same exact parts) and the same type of control board I used (or that the wheel chair uses) the two motors on the rear wheels act like a zero turn mower and can be used to steer and then all you need is some caster wheels on the front of it. Granted the rear wheels and the motors are bigger than that on the scooter but over all its a more simple build imo. Not that your way couldnt work.

Actually for stability's sake you might fab up a frame type mounting system where you can put the wheel chair motors and tires in the middle and have casters front and back that are spaced out wider than the stance of the toolbox to help combat the fact that your toolbox is going to have a high center of gravity and help counter the fact that electric motors that big have a ton of torque and can be a bit "jerky".

The wheel chair motors are designed to run off of 24V but at 24V they will go something like 10-12MPH which is way to fast for you application so I would run it on 12V tops and probably even turn down the dual rate for the throttle control on the transmitter to run it even slower. It recommend the Flysky GT3b for a transmitter.

If you're not running the motors at 24V you'll need to remove the brakes from the motors otherwise it wont move. It takes 24V to release the wheelchair motor brakes. Removing them and fabing up a spacer is easy mode though and removing them will allow you to push it around by hand when not being powered too.

Heres a link to my Lawnmower build. theres more info in there on it. Hope it helps
https://www.rctalk.com/forum/threads/the-lawntoy-2-4ghz.131019
 
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Actually for stability's sake you might fab up a frame type mounting system where you can put the wheel chair motors and tires in the middle and have casters front and back that are spaced out wider than the stance of the toolbox to help combat the fact that your toolbox is going to have a high center of gravity and help counter the fact that electric motors that big have a ton of torque and can be a bit "jerky".

Good thinking. Kinda like the Kennedy setup, but this one actually sucks because of the big balloons for tires...
99-010-437_03-07-08.jpg
 
I just love all the ideas from you guys with the RC projects.
 
Welcome to RCTalk! Great idea but not going to be an easy task at all to move that tool chest around. Good luck, I would love to see the end result if you follow through with the project!
 
Thank you everyone for the warm welcome and a lot of good feed back on this idea

since weight is the main unknown i went and ordered 4x bathroom scales to weigh my toolbox which should be good
for up to 500kg give or take so that should help forge a plan motor wise

As for wheelchair vs scooter I'm probably still leaning towards the scooter because there is a lot more and cheaper here in Australia
than the electric wheelchairs at least second hand anyway.

Good idea about the tires, i was going to use what ever the scooter came with but will swap them out for something ridged
and a bit stronger.

Also the idea was to extend the wheelbase to be just a bit wider than the toolbox which even though its going to lift the toolbox a bit
should make it more stable than what it currently is.

I had a bit of a look around for those pit toolboxes that come motorized but they started at 8k USD and i'm looking to do this on the cheap
i couldn't find a breakdown of the components they used to try to reverse engineer it

I would like to keep the 4x wheel setup with 2wd on one end and steering on the other as opposed to center motor / steering because i feel
it would get in the way when trying to open drawers and i prefer the look too :p
 
Thank you everyone for the warm welcome and a lot of good feed back on this idea

since weight is the main unknown i went and ordered 4x bathroom scales to weigh my toolbox which should be good
for up to 500kg give or take so that should help forge a plan motor wise

As for wheelchair vs scooter I'm probably still leaning towards the scooter because there is a lot more and cheaper here in Australia
than the electric wheelchairs at least second hand anyway.

Good idea about the tires, i was going to use what ever the scooter came with but will swap them out for something ridged
and a bit stronger.

Also the idea was to extend the wheelbase to be just a bit wider than the toolbox which even though its going to lift the toolbox a bit
should make it more stable than what it currently is.

I had a bit of a look around for those pit toolboxes that come motorized but they started at 8k USD and i'm looking to do this on the cheap
i couldn't find a breakdown of the components they used to try to reverse engineer it

I would like to keep the 4x wheel setup with 2wd on one end and steering on the other as opposed to center motor / steering because i feel
it would get in the way when trying to open drawers and i prefer the look too :p
Either way we look forward to seeing pics!!! :)
 
Update

So i weighed in my toolbox.... 352KG!!
20211007_150939.jpg
20211007_150932.jpg

sooo that rules out the mobility scooter mod, just not strong enough for that sort of weight.

So i got thinking about other solutions and now present the following

Motorized caravan jockey modification

A friend got this kit and built it for his caravan trailer, for my purpose i would change the wheels and the ratio
to something that could do a walking place.

The advantage is this is WAY more than strong enough to move the toolbox being that its designed to move 2ton trailers on dirt
downside is buying some redundant parts and also more expensive than buying a second hand scooter

Do you think i would be better off trying to source these parts individually to make my own custom kit? i would need to change the ratio regardless
 

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Wow, I knew it was going to be heavy but I didnt know it was going to be quite that heavy. I have no advice on that set up you're wanting to try there as I'm not familiar with it. The first thing that I'm wondering about that is how youd make it remote controlled.

I figured it would be closer to 250kg which the wheelchair motor idea could have worked as the wheelchair is probably 150ish kgs or so and can easily move a 100kg person on top of that. Not sure if that would be up to 350kg
 
That is actually a bit lighter than I thought it was going to be. My overall box was smaller and weighed nearly 400kg.
 
Wow, I knew it was going to be heavy but I didnt know it was going to be quite that heavy. I have no advice on that set up you're wanting to try there as I'm not familiar with it. The first thing that I'm wondering about that is how youd make it remote controlled.

I figured it would be closer to 250kg which the wheelchair motor idea could have worked as the wheelchair is probably 150ish kgs or so and can easily move a 100kg person on top of that. Not sure if that would be up to 350kg

So it has a remote for forward and reverse, i don't know if this has a free wheel function but can easily find out because i know someone
that has this unit so i can play with that a bit to see what its like.

i would still need the liner actuator for steering idea, but focusing on being able to move it first since the steering funny enough is the least of my problems :p
 
Hello all, I've joined this forum to get some input into my dumb idea to have my workshop toolbox motorized and controlled with a wireless remote

So while joking about the size of my toolbox with the guys in the workshop ( I'm a diesel mechanic} the joke / idea got stuck in my head about
having my toolbox drive around like a R/C car around the workshop and i couldn't stop thinking about how i would make it work.

So the idea i have is to get a mobility scooter cheep of marketplace to provide the drive / motherboard controls which should be strong enough
to move my toolbox at a slow speed ( don't want a fast toolbox so it doesn't tip over) and i would adapt a wireless controller for speed / brakes.
They also have a function to disable the drive from the wheels so i can push it if i desire with out fighting the motor.

Making a frame to attach everything too such as a battery and add on some steering using various parts from the scooter
i would then attach a linear actuator to the center of the sway bar on two pivots to move the steering left and right

So my question to you is do you think this could work, or am i biting off more than i can chew?

For what its worth, i shouldn't have any problems doing any fabrication / welding but my electrical skills are basic and of course I'm not
looking to spend a fortune to make this happen. I believe i could get a decent scooter for about 200-500 bucks, a actuator like i have pictured
would be about 50 bucks and a wireless remote probably for around 30-40 bucks.

as for the frame / steel part i've got lots of scrap / left overs at work i would piece together and paint when done

Attached are some photos of my toolbox, and a sample of the scooter i would be looking out for and a actuator
I don't know how much my toolbox weighs in at, i guess around the 200-300kg mark to give some idea of the strength needed on moving / steering

At this stage I'm more brain storming on why this couldn't work / what things to look out for before i start shopping around and seeing what i can get.

Thanks in advance for any help.
Here is a probably dumber thought from a Squidgy Olde Faerte. Have the RC motorized toolbox become a TRANSFORMER that would morph into a truck and/or even hand you a tool you asked for via VOICE OR GESTURE RECOGNITION COMMAND 🤪. Like ROBOT WARS, battling toolboxes would be a hoot to watch !
 
If you could find a used cheap caravan mover of the type where there is one electrical motor per wheel, it might be a little more expensive and overkill power but it moves slowly and comes with the remote and anything you need, and can be easily powered by an old car battery
 
So, are you looking to build something like this? I had been wanting to build a motorized tool cart for installing commercial kitchens in restaurants. After about a year of back and forth, trial and error, waiting 4-6 weeks for parts from China (just to find out they wouldn't work for what I wanted to do) and all else, I was able to make it work. I actually have 8 of these carts now that I use for my business. My carts aren't as heavy as yours, but they come in at 600#, or 270 KG.
The carts roll freely when the motors aren't engaged, they have an on board charger and work pretty damn good if I do say so. I am Extremely proud of myself for building these, as I was in the same place as you...wondering if it could even be done, let alone how to do it if it was possible.
I didn't lose any storage space at all, as the motors are built into the wheels (hub motors), the batteries are tucked under the bottom of the cart in between the support channels and the charger is tucked in the other internal cavities of the cabinet walls too.
I am no RC guy, so I am sure anyone here could build something way better with their knowledge, but these work great for what I need them for.
On a few of them, I also added some bluetooth speaker systems too. Mine has a pair of 6's, an 8" sub and 2 amps that all run off the cart batteries too. The other guy's carts just have a single amp system with a pair of 6" speakers.
Pic is of the cart with all the drawers out, pre-wiring it all.
The green cart in the background is one of the other carts.

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0G5wwKDFJKfyk3

IMG_5C025B022D07-1.jpeg
 
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