Asked — Edited

First Impressions Of Six

I received Six two days ago after having it on order for one year. I was glad to see it. It took my wife and I four hours to assemble Six. The assembly instructions were good, but like anything new, there can be a few improvements.

First improvement: The port connection information should be made more obvious, it is there, but in very small font and easily missed.

Second improvement: On the servo orientation some of the servo's are ninety degrees off-set from others. The default view should be more obvious on which way the servo is positioned. We had to remove several servos because we put it together the wrong way at first.

Third improvement: We did not find any labels to put at the end of the servo connectors to identify which ports each connector gets plugged in which part of the main computer.

Fourth improvement: The shipping of Six was nicely packaged, however not very usable during construction. We had to remove everything from both layers of the foam packaging to access the parts on the bottom. The packaging can be redone so that parts are available in the order they are needed for construction.

Fifth improvement: I had ordered an extra 6 lever servos for the additional degrees of freedom in movement. I also ordered two of the grabber arms. These parts were placed randomly at the bottom of a cardboard box, which then had bubble wrap on top of them. With the main robot box slipped down on top of everything. I was not impressed.

Sixth improvement: The software startup was somewhat difficult. The robot did not make any sound or audio message upon boat up. Thanks to EZ-Robot support, they have been very helpful in resolving this issue.

Seventh improvement: I realized that even with no sound that the robot would connect to the Wi-Fi in AP mode. I then loaded the example Six program. After some playing to learn the software, we got the robot moving. At this point in time I am trying to figure out how to calibrate the servos as movement is still unbalanced.

These comments are meant to help in improve the product and I appreciate all the support of the EZ-Robot team.

Thanks, Neil Sablatzky ;)


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PRO
Belgium
#1  

congrats neil

if you follow the tutorial,you see ontop the id's from servo's and where to put them.

User-inserted image

PRO
Belgium
#3  

yeach awesome. you gonna build six whit grippers?

United Kingdom
#4  

I'm sure that will be helpful to EZ-Robots, I know they appreciate all feedback.

Having said that, in addition or response to your comments...

  1. I agree, I missed it completely and had to use the robot designer to find the ports, this was probably due to me being in a rush however port information doesn't stand out.

  2. You can change the view in the instructions, in the lower right of the screen are the views, this will show clearly which way around servos and parts need to be.

  3. The labels are on the PCB and just about visible through the case. The port labels have been mentioned before however due to the size of the EZ-B and the space available it is as good as it gets. This was why the port selection dialogue in ARC was changed to a graphical one showing the layout of the EZ-B.

  4. The layout of the packaging is pretty much in the order of construction with the exception of the charger adapter and all six feet being in the top layer. The lower layer only holds the remaining servos, balance charger and spiral wrap. What exactly would you move from the top layer to the lower layer?

  5. I can't comment on this as I didn't have any additional items.

  6. An isolated fault which I presume was rectified. In all manufacturing processes there will me isolated incidents unfortunately. At least EZ-Robot and the community helped solve it.

  7. Click on the project tab of the ribbon and choose Configure under servo Profile, you can then fine tune all servos.

Lastly, 4 hours? I know I have been around a while now but I put Six together in half an hour with no issues. What caused it to take so long?

#5  

@antguru, Congratulations on the new toy and welcome to the group. EZ Robot seems to always listen to the community so I'm sure they will welcome the feedback. Sounds like you and your wife enjoyed the building process and took your time. Anybody that takes pictures must have been really looking forward to the new member of the family.

#6  

Yes welcome aboard ez-robot ! It took me along time to build my first robot. Have fun!

J

:):) :):)

#7  

Yes, we are building Six with grippers. The rest of my comments are below each item.

1)I agree, I missed it completely and had to use the robot designer to find the ports, this was probably due to me being in a rush however port information doesn't stand out.

All critical information should be in large fonts.

  1. You can change the view in the instructions, in the lower right of the screen are the views, this will show clearly which way around servos and parts need to be.

We did this. The default view should show the entire story, not just default to the top view.

  1. The labels are on the PCB and just about visible through the case. The port labels have been mentioned before however due to the size of the EZ-B and the space available it is as good as it gets. This was why the port selection dialogue in ARC was changed to a graphical one showing the layout of the EZ-B.

We made our own labels and put them on the ends of each servo connector. The brain needs a label on top of the case to identify the connector assignments.

  1. The layout of the packaging is pretty much in the order of construction with the exception of the charger adapter and all six feet being in the top layer. The lower layer only holds the remaining servos, balance charger and spiral wrap. What exactly would you move from the top layer to the lower layer?

When we found the loose parts in the bottom of the large carton, good receiving practice calls for anybody to take inventory of what was received. When we opened the EZ-Robot, main package, we noticed that there was no information suggesting that it was packaged in order of assembly sequence. So, here again, we took inventory, which called for unpacking the entire box.

  1. I can't comment on this as I didn't have any additional items.

  2. An isolated fault which I presume was rectified. In all manufacturing processes there will me isolated incidents unfortunately. At least EZ-Robot and the community helped solve it.

The support team is currently working to resolve this issue. We have not identified what's wrong yet.

  1. Click on the project tab of the ribbon and choose Configure under servo Profile, you can then fine tune all servos.

Question: Is there a tutorial, or help file, on how to calibrate the servos? I could not find a "?" button when I go into the configure tab. Such a help file/tutorial would be very helpful.

Lastly, 4 hours? I know I have been around a while now but I put Six together in half an hour with no issues. What caused it to take so long.

I am visually impaired.

#8  

@antguru

DJ and team are developing step by step tutorials currently. Being a pre order customer and providing your input is very valuable. You are one of the first owners of six. As such EZ-Robot is learning a lot from you and your recommendation for future deliveries. I am sure that they will or have read your comments and appreciate them and will make necessary adjustments to non per order orders going forward.

PRO
Synthiam
#9  

thanks for the feedback! It's great to hear:)

Seems everyone has answered the questions - the one that stood out most was the assembly instructions. It appears the older version of ARC you were using did not include the most recent enhancements, specifically changing view to display the direction of the EZ-Bit assembly (servos in this case).

  1. I have taken your advice on the Port Connection and created a new ARC version that has a very clear port connection section. Here is a snapshot of the new instruction screen, you can't miss it...

User-inserted image

  1. A newer version of ARC was published a few days ago which orients the users view during assembly to help understand orientation of the servo. There are also new View buttons which allow you to adjust the view manually for assistance.:)

  2. Correct, there are no labels for the wires - that might not seem like a bad idea but at the same time it was... and very messy. Following the wire back to it's original servo (or reverse) we found to be much easier and more intuitive. We first used labels and it was chaos! There were so many labels and it was impossible to identify between labels. So instead, we realized that simply following the wire back to it's original servo was super easy and intuitive. I recommend purchasing labels from your local office supply store (i.e. Staples) if you feel it will resolve your issue.

  3. Great effort went into packaging for Six, JD and Roli to make the box compact for lowest shipping cost. 1 cm larger on either side would increase shipping cost by more than $50, which would increase the price of your product an equal amount. In our opinion, we do not feel that removing the layers to have a larger box is worth an additional $50+ or more to the retail price. Additionally, we have received many emails and numerous unboxing videos with praise over our compact box layout.:)

  4. There is no room in the robot box for additional parts because it is impossible to predict what additional parts you would purchase. In the future, we will have the additional parts wrapped in plastic baggies, but for now we are wrapping them in bubble wrap. Additional parts will always be lose in the shipping box.

  5. I do understand that without the audio it would have been difficult to follow the tutorial videos from the LEARN section of the website. I'm glad we are resolving the hardware issue for you

  6. Stated by other members, we are constantly growing the support and videos to assist the customer. EZ-Robot is meant to be easy, and even though we are not finished with tutorials, we're still easier than anything else out there! We appreciate your feedback. However, we are constantly creating updates and features in both the software and website - on a daily basis. Soon you will see a brand new tutorial LEARN section with a growing number of videos.

In short, thanks for your feedback. We have many enhancements to the product support and many more robot apps in the works for the future!

PRO
Belgium
#10  

i downloaded the new version.and when i click image top it shows only the bottem?

PRO
Synthiam
#11  

Nomad,

  1. your question does not belong in this conversation

  2. can you provide a screenshot of what you are referring to? I would like to help but I do not understand what your message is about without details and information:)

PRO
Belgium
#12  

ok i make another post whit pic.