Affordable Modular ARC Robotics Kit

Hi @Nomad.  Buying robotics components on Temu, AliExpress, Wish, Banggood etc is a great way to find low cost items although quality is questionable, usually come with high import duties or tarrifs, as well as shipping and other taxes.  The components don’t meet certifications and standards of the receiving country so are not exactly safe but yeah I use them all the time.

I was in Huaqiangbei (Shenzhen China) last year and you wouldn’t believe the prices for electronic components. I was catching bullet train and luggage is limited so I didn’t have a lot of space and only brought a couple of things back but negotiating with and buying direct from Chinese manufacture is the way to go.

@jeremie All this is def in your court as you know the particulars about EZ Robots business dealings more than we do. There seems like alot of layers to get something like this going. Maybe a year too market? Again I yield back to you on those particulars. All I can offer at this time is what I am already doing which is to have the EZB/IOTiny as an option for the controller in my course. There are many avenues my company can pursue in regards to growth potential and those are based on the success of this first release of the course. And that release only includes a BOM so I am not carrying stock inventory of the EZBs or any other controller. It will be up to the customer to source those parts and make their own choice based on budget as to what's the right controller for them.

Pricing and availability like Nink and I are talking about is the common denominator. For my Eco system (Mecha Morphix) the EZB and Camera are the most expensive single components in the entire build. So how much cheaper are you talking about from current offerings? $20, $50, $75 cheaper? My bootleg ESP32 cost me less than $30. But, I do understand the hidden values in things like FCC/CE certification etc.

Anyways that is my 2 cents...how about you @Nink what are your thoughts?

@fxrtst I don't think it would take that long. I would have to talk to Dennis in order to give a better time estimate. It would need to be launched before the next school year to take advantage of the savings. So working back from August, a production batch would need to produced by then. So a maximum window would be 6 months, a minimum window would likely be 3 months.

I won't have an estimated calculation of cost savings yet until I finish a prototype. I don't think it's fair to compare the price of DIY modules jumpered and soldered together, to an all-in-one drop-in solution (just add power) with injection molded enclosure.

@jeremie of course. I’m using that as a reference point. And those parts were sourced from Amazon. On Aliexpress like $3 to 5 dollars.

I was asking in reference to current pricing. I said elsewhere in this thread or my thread I thought $50 or less would be a great entry point price for controller and camera. Current pricing for camera and ezb is well over $200. Again my 2 cents.

The time line seems pretty good as well. 3 to 6 months! That’s quick! Good luck with your prototype.

I mentioned before but haven’t seen any feedback. What is the outcome? Do you have a list of requirements yet? Start with requirements and work backward. If you’re trying to build and design blindly with no requirement list, you're gonna get discouraged - and the project might feel too heavy. Setting a goal gives you something to work toward - measure success toward - Theres a lot of reasoning behind it.

Another option If you’re not making something from scratch I’d go iotiny + esp32cam. There’s a firmware that turns esp32cam into an ezb cam. You can see it on the esp32cam hardware page under the list of firmwares.

also if you need more servos, add the pca9685 to iotiny.

thats a more robust solution than an esp32 with a fragile ribbon cable and a no power management or safety.

don’t forget that if you’re thinking that this is running off batteries, it needs some form of management.

funny though. The mention of ezb v4 and ezrobot cameras as if they’re expensive... Appears that way doesnt it? Until you try to reproduce it. The micros in the ezb v4 are still more powerful than what’s in the esp32’s that are being considered. The ezb v4 is still an absolute powerhouse compared to what you can make with diy components. Audio video on the fly I/o between digital in/out servo pwm 3 UARTs. All running at the same time lol. And don’t dismiss the gui wifi configurable webserver. Oh and voice feedback. Oh and really don’t forget how much current it powers. Plus every single I/o has isolators. Man

We aint getting that with an esp32. I had a difficult time making the esp32 send a broadcast to ARC in the latest firmware let alone adding anything else

Oh ironically my friend sent me a text earlier complaining about an amazon robot kit she bought. Got a kick out of her comment

this is your goal ^^ how do we solve that and still stay within a budget

I think we are all confusing cost and price.  I don’t know the exact component breakdown of the EZBV4 (you do) but I would assume that this uses 10 to 12 year old STM32 and PIC32 MCU so for the board cost itself in volume of say 1000+ you are probably EZBv4 $25 to $40 versus ESP32 S3 $15 to $30. To get the price we need to add in all the one time costs (design, test samples, testing, country specific certifications.) and then all the other ongoing costs (injection molded cases, cables, connectors, assembly, quality checking, packaging, warranty parts and replacement, markup, shipping, import duties, tarrifs, taxes etc) that $10 to $15 difference is quickly eroded by the other costs.   You also need to make an initial order of ~1000+ units to hit the new cost model and need to move from proven hardened tech to new unproven model.  These are all tough business decisions.

I am not sure we can look at this as just a way to replace the EZBv4 and Camera but more of a way to find a low cost alternative robot controller and Camera that meets education and hobbyists design requirements that is sold in a form factor similar to the iotiny.  Could we use it as a replacement to run the entire ez-robot line absolutely if that is a requirement.  I started to try and collect functional and non functional requirements earlier in this thread and as DJ stated maybe we should continue on that process.

One of the big differences is the CAM technology. One is a hires OV5640 or cheaper OV2640 connected direct to the ESP and the other is a Serial OV2640 camera connected to its own STM32 chip and heatsink.

You can run a 16 pin ribbon cable for about 10 to 15cm with a OV2640 as my robot does as seen below or use a higher quality twisted pair cable maybe you will get 20cm with an OV5640 and lose some frames and potential noise.

The other alternative is we can do what EZB camera does and use a compact ESP32 S3 CAM and connect it via serial to the main ESP32 S3 or just send that camera over Wi-Fi Direct to ARC.

We could also  provide a UART and connector to support the existing EZB camera as an option.

something like this with a simple USB-C cable between this mini ESP32 S3+OV5640 and the main ESP32 S3 that we would use to provide power. You could also run the servos in JD Head and RGB eyes off it if you wanted as well so you just have the one power cable.