Haha Cool,

the board will fitt but where to put the servo's and lost but not least the battery.... Or do you wanna give him a big bone as battery

lol it has a ton of its own sensors and servos. Im just thinking of ways to remotely tuning its "personality" through bluetooth and scripting. :/ I will know more when it arrives. Got it for $29 but needs battery and charger. Looks like a 12v pack with a 6v center tap for electronics. Thats all i know for now.

I have one of those dogs from many years ago when they were new. Paid a lot for a pretty dumb toy I have been meaning to dissect and see what it's servos are. It'd be nice if they were servos, but due to the "alignment" mode, I suspect they are just motors with hbridges.

There is a programming ability. I'm not sure what ud do to impress anyone with programming the embeded micro? I'd probably locate the existing hbridge triggers, cut out the microcontroller with a dremel and hook up an ez-b. Throw a camera in it's head and ull end up with a robot dog that would put the aibo to shame!

I managed to dig this up. Youre right about the H bridges... Rated R for robotic gore

oh yeah...not much room for anything...meh...thats ok, Im new to this so I will just tinker and learn with the ez-b. I actually plan to use the toy Darth vader arm, add servos and modify it to move each finger individually. Just as a first project/test bed to learn scripting. :/

That's too bad about the HBridges. Although, it wouldn't be difficult to use them. The trigger's for each HBridge will be very visible. They'll run directly to the microcontroller if you follow the trace on the PCB. Most likely there will be a enroute, so you'll need to include that in your hijacking plans because the hbridge includes a transistor. And you need a resistor on the trace to the switch the transistor.

You might get away with being able to cut that PCB in half and simply use the HBridge.

Where are there 12 analog switches? That's interesting. Wonder what they are used for...

Eventually thats probably what I would do with the H bridges but only after I have a firm understanding of scripting. There are a lot of subroutines to work out ie the specific sequence to get it to walk, get up after falling, etc. I may even need a second ez-b for all the sensors and motors. There are 16 motors alone!

I dunno about the analog switches since there aren't any schems on these online. I will try and trace and post it when it comes in.

My ez-b is enroute yay!

Thanx for the help!

After looking at this more I dont think the H-Bridges are the only sticking point. What about position sensors?! There would be far to many of them. In the absence of those I would have to time how many ms each runs in fwd and rvs, but Im sure it would quickly lose calibration to its starting point. Im gonna put this thread to rest for now. Once I get it in hand I will know for sure if workarounds are possible. tired I will let ya know if anything pops up.

DJ Quote-" I'm not sure what ud do to impress anyone with programming the embeded micro?"

Yep, youre right.

Any Update Luck with I-Cybie? We have 2 of them...Would Like to Hack it with the EZ- B!:)

Unfortunately its a space issue for me. The DC motors are supplied with H-bridges which would still have to be used which also means the orginal board would have to stay. There are just so many DC motors in the little guy. Just today I was contemplating on if I severely modify the board if it would fit inside. I've got another idea but its on the back burner. I'm waiting for my parts (from china) to arrive so I can continue my Wall-E project first. I hear DJ has a Cybie so maybe he will have that thing modded one day. hint hint

Found this interesting..

http://pappmaskin.no/2009/11/frankendog-diy-animatronics/

There are 2 motors per leg. Perhaps swapping them out with Mico RC Servos???? Then Control with Board w/o HiBridge?