Two can be connected to from the same computer at the same time. This would allow you to save variables from one and allow the other one to act on it. Great robot btw.

There isn't an expansion port. I think you are talking about the uart serial port.

just to be sure that you understand, I will tell you how the ez-b works.

The ez-b is connected via WiFi to a computer or an smart phone. The computer is where all of the logic runs. The ez-b is used to control the devices. Up to 5 ez-b's can be connected to the computer. This allows you to control 5 bots, or one Bot with up to 5 ez-b's. You can use a small computer in the Bot to make all of the electronics onboard the robot.

Because of this architecture, there isn't a reason for the ez-b's to be connected to each other.

Saw your bot on a web site.... Nice job dude...

Thank you for the complements. So if I understand this right the computer dose all the processing.

Dose this mean that a computer must be present at all times? As in the robot or EZ-B4 will not run with out a computer present?

You have to be connected to ARC app. It can also run on an iPhone or android, but you have to be connected to this app.

Because these connect via WiFi, the computer just has to be on the same WiFi network.

That's not to bad, if it will run off a phone. I will keep R2's main operation RC as they are now, I thinking a bought using the EZ-b4 for Autonomous functions, which are not used vary often. Currently its handled by 2 Arduino's. When I turn on the Autonomous mode the 2 Arduino's that run the Autonomous functions are powered up and take control of R2. So I could use an old cellphone to do the processing.

This is good to know. I was under the idea that the EZ-B4 had the programing uploaded to it and would run once turned on.

HHmm... Some things here to think a bought. Still looking interesting.

Is there anything else I should be considering?

Thank you for your help.

I have used arduino.... although really good... EZB4 will blow arduino out of the water with it's built in features...

Very nice Droid @Slee The Sloth . I really, really like it. Very nice craftsmanship.

I think you'll find EZ Robot is what your looking for. I'm automating a full size B9 and am amazed what it's doing to make my robot come alive.

d.cochran's completely correct in all he states. If your worried about being tethered to a computer you can run the droid from a smart phone or even put a Mini ATX motherboard and SSD hard drive somewhere on him. Or just keep everything on a small laptop and sit it on a table somewhere around the house. If you take the little guy out you can hook directly to the laptop without the need of a router and Wifi network!

I hope you stick around. I'd love to see what your R2 can do with EZB.

I had the same concerns when I first started looking at the ez-b. I then realized the following and decided it was the way to go for me.

when technology changes, I can continue to use the same controllers and upgrade my laptop, which I would do anyway.

my Bot would be connected to my WiFi anyway.

the Bot would now have access to my network or anything on the internet

the processing can happen much better on my i7 without dedicating it to just my robot.

the cost of getting into this becomes much lower because I wasn't having to buy a board capable of all of this processing.

my robot could now do more than I had ever imagined.

I decided it was right for me. Then I downloaded ARC and saw how easy it was to make the Bot do almost anything. I was sold.

Not a correction but some clarification of @d.cochran's statement about two being connected to the PC at one time, you can actually connect five, giving 40 ADC ports, 120 digital ports, 15 I2C ports (although you can connect multiple devices on each port) etc. etc.

The project must be built in ARC on a Windows 7 or higher PC but once saved to the cloud you can run it from an android/iOS device if required.

The combination of EZ-B and PC processing really blows all other controllers away. Very simple to modify a project or even build and test one on the fly.

And, above all else, awesome support from EZ-Robots and this community.

Richard, I agree this dose blow Arduino's out of the water and then some.

Dave, Thanks for the complements. I will decently be sticking around. I can see so many possibilities. I have been thinking of building a protocol droid like C3PO to greet people when they come into my computer shop. It would not have to do much but wave and turn its head. The voice commands could be used to have it carry on a conversation with customers until I can get with them. That would be slightly impressing. Yup I'm going to hang out here often. I'd be interested in seeing Your B-9 if you have any videos.

Thanks for all your help.

Your C3Po Droid would rock with the text to speech and speech recognition built into ARC....

Richard R , Thanks yes I think it would be impressive.

Ok so I thought of yet another question. The speaker, can it be external or plugged into an small amp ?

also wondering a bought the microphone, can it be external ?

There are ports on the bottom of the ez-b for external speakers. There is a separate location that you would want to solder to if you are going to use an amp. There is an extensive post on this in this forum.

microphone is a bit different. I am trying to figure out what to do there also. Thinking about a Bluetooth mic to the PC. If you are going with a phone, there would be options there, but I haven't researched that yet.

https://synthiam.com/Community/Questions/5681

this is about setting up an external speaker..

There isn't a MIC built into the ezb. What you see with the voice recognition is the PC or phone doing this, so yes, it can be external.

Thanks for the interest in my B9 @Slee The Sloth. I'll insert a few links below to most of the work I've done with regards to building it and fitting EZB into it.

d.cochran's link to the way to break out sound to an external amp will lead you to the work I did when I wanted to do just this. It has pictures of where to attach and even a video of how it turned out. It's amazing what high quality sound you can produce. It seems only limited by the quality of your sound files and your sound system.system. I see the link d.cochran provided is not hyper so feel free to click on this:

Breaking out then sound from EZB V4

Here's a link to my B9 project thread here on this forum and a couple others you may be interested in:

First Real Look At My Ez-b Controlled Full Size Lis B9 Robot - lots of videos and pics.

Power

More then one EZB

Low power

Serial Communication

Grab bag

Grab bag

Sabertooth & Kangaroo X2

Sabertooth & Kangaroo X2

Here's an outside link to lots of pics of the process of building my B9:

Building my B9

Again, thanks for the interest. Please return and share any progress you make and let us know if you have any questions or need help. Seems to be lots of folks willing to lend a hand.

Dave Schulpius

on the mic, I am going to try to use multiple Kinects from xbox 360's and usb over cat 6 devices to add multiple mics through the house. I will then mix these mic's for the final feed into my pc. I don't know if this will work or not but it will be a fun project.

So I was thinking, This is usually gets me in trouble and I seem to do that a lot, but.... When using the mobile app, can you have more then one screen? You know how a cell phone app slides?

From what I have seen DJ demo on a video on this site, you can use either the screen you design for your mobile app, or switch to the ARC interface on your phone in the app. I have no experience with this because I use a windows phone.

From experience id advise against multiple mics around the home. I tried that with Jarvis and the results were very poor. I spent more trying that method than a decent wireless mic costs.

The mic needs to be on the person speaking ideally. It also needs isolation i.e. when not being used it wants to stop listening otherwise you get a lot of false commands. Jarvis used to talk to himself a lot!

I'm new here but. You might try one mic, per room and use a motion sensor to activate each room.

The issues were that the room mics would pick up too much noise. Even the best microphone will pick up rubbish if it's not on the user. Motion detectors didn't help much either. I guess it depends on how quiet the house is though.

I have tried a whole range of microphones for Jarvis from the Kinect mic to high quality directional mics with noise reduction. None work very well. I will admit that I do have very high standards though.

I finally found a wireless mic on the person/people speaking worked a lot better. The accuracy was greatly increased and I now have no triggering from false commands. Accuracy of understanding the spoken words is also dramatically increased, previously I would need a confidence level of 75% for Jarvis to trigger events, any higher and it wouldn't accept them. I now have this set to 97% and rarely do I need to repeat commands and never does noise trigger commands.

Another note though, I use dictation with Jarvis for quite a lot of commands rather than have a set phrase list. For a small phrase list I'm sure the setup could be of a much lower quality but do you really want that?

I think what d.cochran ,is trying to do, is make it so that anyone who enters the room can talk with or to the robot. Same as I'm thinking of doing with a C3po in my computer shop. In both cases we would have to issue a mic. to each person that entered the room. In this instance a centralized mic. would be better, because you do not have one central operator.

Rich is correct that a whole room mic gives a lot of false triggers. Also it's hard to get the software to respond to other people that hasn't trained the software.

That said I don't want to ware a mic when talking to my B9 and also want others to try to speak to him. I'm OK with some false triggers as it makes him look more autonomous. The coolest thing that happened recently was a friend of mines young son was sitting on a bar stool in front of B9 watching a game of pinball on one of my games. B9 suddenly bent over him and scared the crap out of him. Poor kid but we all laughed till we had tears.

Anyway, I've had real good success with a stand up mic called The Blue Snowball. It has several settings and even looks cool.