Thanks Dave!

I don't know much about it myself since I don't have mine in my hands yet but to answer some of your questions;

The 3 ports you said you don't know what they are, I believe these are the three I2C ports. The black one to the side I assume is the UART port.

DJ has previously mentioned it's centre positive on the jack, just to confirm what you said.

I'd say it's a 20A fuse, the EZ-B passes through the voltage so chances are you may want to pull a lot of current. A 20A fuse will still blow very quickly if there is a problem. As far as I am aware a fuse is a fuse, an amp is an amp regardless of country.

It's 3.3v on the ADC/I2C ports.

Love how it looks, so neat! And my concerns about it's height are put to rest, I didn't realise it was the power base in the photo I saw of it. Since I plan to not use the base and just have a mini deans connector in my robot it should just plug right in and be that bit shallower.

Thanks for adding your knowledge to the statments I made and the questions I asked Rich. Glad it was of some help and enjoyent to you. ;)

Instead of another EZB4 thread I'll just add a couple of more pictures into Daves' post. I did take one EZB4 apart, moved the large capacitor (resettable fuse) up a little, desoldered the power connector and added a couple of power leads to help relocate the way power can be connected. Don't forget to add fused protection between the EZB4 and your battery source.

Guys... nice, thanks... And Dave... LOL...We use the same fuses and such as you Yanks do... Nothing special here... That is indeed a run-of-the-mill 20amp fuse...

Richard

Thanks guy's for taking the time to share video and pictures.

:) j

Ok, I am jealous, where the heck is mine? It's floating around in some factory in China :-{ Thank you for the information and the pictures and the extra comments :-}

Another thing to keep in mind is the speaker is a spring loaded contact design integrated into the plastic housing. No housing, no speaker.

I'm sure one could solder wires and add an external speaker if required.

@Lumpy, I'm sure all the modifications to the board will slowly come once people get hold of theirs and start adapting them to suit their needs :)

Look to the bottom left of the speaker contacts, there are pin holes for an external speaker connection. It reads SPKR which means SPEAKER.

The amperage is indeed 20 amps for the EZ-B v4 power supply.

The large thing on the EZ-B main board is not a capacitor, it is a resettable fuse. There are two fuses on the EZ-B v4....

Datasheet and intro videos are coming today...

@Rich

Yup. Just wanted to give everybody a heads up that the speaker isn't physically attached to the EZB V4.

First thing I did was pop the cases off. I'll figure out a speaker configuration later on.

How can we extend the camera cable?

@PJ it's a 6 pin JST connection cable which connects the two together.

Just an FYI, I had a letter from the post office saying that I have a package that's waiting for collection if I pay the duty on it, so I rushed there at around 135mph and grabbed it... Unboxing video coming as soon as I get chance to upload it however off out again now So that'll be in a couple of hours...

Pre-warning, it's uncut, unedited, and my battery died so has a quick ending but more will come later :)

Congrats Rich... Looking forward to your run through of the board... Whatever you can give us, we're all ears and eyes of course...

Richard

This is awesome. It's super exciting to see people actually getting our product! First time it's happened since I've been here New experience for me.

It's kind of weird to me, watching your video and knowing that I might have been the one who put that plastic together for you and it's very likely it went through my hands. Though I didn't do most of the work, 99% of it was the guys and I'm proud of them! A whole lot of hard work sitting right there.

Ha, Ha... @Chrissi,,, They got you multi-tasking too.... DJ is mopping the floors at night and now you are helping out getting our orders shipped... Good on ya' girl :)

As promised, my unboxing and initial playing around video :)

More coming soon :)

When they say "made in Canada" they mean by their office slaves! We get whipped if we break a plastic piece!

Just kidding. We get paid, not whipped. All of us help out at times to get these orders filled, just with the manual labour.

:P... Thanks Rich... Love the name of your home network... kissmyass..... Great network name...

As a huge Kiss fan it come from a cover CD I have :)

FYI my "issue" with connecting was due to forgetting my password is case sensitive... Oops... It's fixed and I'm just getting some cool screenshots to help guide people through the connection process etc. :D

Loving the board though... However, a tip, if you take it apart don't over tighten the screws when putting it back together, let's just say I would have been whipped...

Sweet...Take your time Rich.... Looking forward to your complete analysis of the V4

awesome thank you @Rich, placing my order right now. Now that I see the actual product, willing to wait until next uear if I have to hahaha.

@Rich, come on man! Putting up a video with the EZ-B v4 looking like it can't connect to your network when it's your issue Making us look bad! LOL

The night is young (and the video is unlisted...)! And my latest tutorial should make up for that :)

More (much more) coming in the next 3 hours or so... Oh so much to do, so many choices, where do I start :D

hahahah that's what I like to hear :D

As per DJ's post #10 regarding the speaker, while I wait for the next video to upload here's a photo of the connection mentioned...

You may also look at the datasheet on the Learn section of the website - there is reference to the speaker connection. You can access the Learn section by selecting LEARN from the top menu of the website.

Part 2 of my first look at the V4. Again it's uncut, unrehearsed and I'm using a lot of the features for the first time.

As I said in the video, it is really impressive. I knew I was going to be impressed which raises the bar a lot to actually impress me but it's done it!

Probably the final video for tonight, part 3 of my first look/first play. Once again, uncut, unedited, unrehearsed...

Now all I need is a robot to put it on and give it a really good test Good thing it's nearly the weekend!..

Frame rate is much higher than the V3 camera... very happy about that.... Wow Rich, you're nothing like I thought you would look like... I was picturing a young David Beckham.... What a relief....

higher framerate? HIGHER? Are you kidding Richard?! it's absolutely real-time! There's 10ms delay or something ridiculously unmeasurable...

We spent nearly 2 months designing the camera, video codec and protocol to have close to ZERO latency as possible.

:D

So it was a little bit of an understatement... lol... bottom line it's light years ahead of the V3 camera... All that design work you did on the new camera really shows... kudos...

Oh man is it ever Thank you! If you knew how many late nights we've had trying to increase the frame rate and decrease latency... I remember the first day we ever got a camera image displaying! It was a rat nest of wires on my desk... Probably around 3 AM... and there it was, projected on the wall... 3 frames per second!

Haha, 3 frames per second..

I also remember running calculations trying to get the image crisper and faster. There was a day I almost gave up. I told Jeremie and Alan that it might not be possible to do.

Running cameras at high frame rates isn't an issue - it's the zero latency that you'll never experience on other products. Cameras normally buffer and are seconds behind the live stream. We have zero latency - and that was a real challenge.

I didn't order the camera at the same time as my EZB so it's not on it's way yet. After hearing about these upgrades I cant wait to see it! It feels like when you were a kid waiting for Christmas and it's only August. LOL Even if it were coming next week it would seem like forever. Anticipation!

@DJ... the long road to bringing Revolution to market is riddled with empty pizza boxes and late night candle burning.... Some of us whined about the long delays (myself included), but not once did I ever forget how much effort you and your team have put (and continue to put) into EZ Robot....Well gotta go, I am chowing down on my crow sandwich right now (as one of my orders has confirmed shipped) :P

Last night I fially found the time to connect to the V4. What a dream come true. I'm blown away at the craftsmenship and tech that went into this little powerhouse. I'm so honored to have been one of the first few to take delevery of this amazing slice of history. This is where it all starts!

Thanks to all at EZ Robot, and most of all DJ to make sure these first boards were sent out to us in advance of the China shipment in a few weeks.

One of my first questions to @Anthony when he offered to answer questions on the V4 way back when he got his was about the Benchmark. While they will all be different I thought I would at least check mine out and post my results so it gives an idea of the speed of communications...

ReadADC: 8.85 commands per second, took 33.89 seconds to read 300 times SetServo: 37497.66 commands per second, took 0.008 seconds to set servo to 300 different positions on D0 SetServo&Speed: 1271.11 commands per second, took 0.472 seconds to execute 600 commands on D0 SetDigital: 42854.69 commands per second, took 0.007 seconds to set D0 to true 300 times. ReadDigital: 9.07 commands per second, took 33.08 seconds to read 300 commands.

That's much faster than the V3!

@DJ... You should have signed those first 100 boards... One day they be worth a lot of money like a Bobby Orr or Wayne Gretzky rookie card... I can see one on eBay 10 years from now with a Buy it Now price of $1000.... ;)

@Rich... thanks for posting that... DJ did say he packed a lot of horse power into the little V4 board...

Was wondering if anyone else gets a lot of static from the speaker. For some reason mine seems to have a little too much. Even after turning the sound down, with the slider to zero, it still puts out what I feel is a little too much. I have tried placing the unit on different surfaces but still with the same results. I have nothing else plugged into it and even tried another power supply but the static is still there.

Any ideas what this could be or what I might try to get the static sound to stop.

Herr

I did notice a little static while playing MP3s however that may have been the MP3. When using the SayEZB() command it was static free.

Guys, great job! and Rich, you ARE one of the reasons that I have not given up.

;)

Richard R you are right on ebay I found the ezb v3 for 290 euros

@Herr Ball I also get static noise coming from from my speaker. It is much more noticeable now that I have wired the Ez-B directly to the original speaker that came with Wall-E. The sound produced is better but the static is more clearly there (in comparison to the Ez-B inbuilt speaker). Significantly worst static occurs when starting the camera via the camera control panel. Stopping the camera reduces the static. Moving the camera around when it's on has no effect on the amount of static. Oddly there can be an occasional split second pause in the static, when doing nothing to bring this about. Does the camera need to be shielded from the Ez-B?

The speaker connection on the ezb goes through it's own amp... simply wiring another speaker (did you check and see if the speaker you wired it to has the same ohm rating as the built in ezb's speaker? Because that could be your problem) will just produce the same distortion that existed before... there is another through hole speaker connection on the ezb4 board that bypasses the built in pre amp.... if you wire your own amplifier and speaker to that connection instead you should get clean (louder) output... Dave has done this with his B9 so there is a recent thread floating around here on how to do this... It only involves 2wires... ground connection and the other wire to the new speaker output

Very nice external audio post

Looks like a great product. I only have one question why was the switch made from Bluetooth to Wi-Fi? Wi-Fi is not going to be available in every location and the robot can only be used at home?

@4R2D33700 - You can connect to the EZ-B v4 directly from your phone or computer so you can use it anywhere, not just somewhere that has wireless internet.

Almost every portable PC made in the last decade has wifi too, which can be used to connect to the EZ-B. If it doesnt then a wifi dongle is actually cheaper than a bluetooth one.

Ok. So it connects directly just like the Bluetooth did with no data plan needed?

Yes it can do.

There are two "modes" WiFi AP Mode and WiFi Client Mode.

In AP Mode (Access Point), the EZ-B will broadcast it's own WiFi network which the PC's WiFi will connect to.

In Client Mode the EZ-B will connect to an existing WiFi LAN.

Got it figured out, thanks.

One reason why they switched was because of the audio now coming from out of the EZB V4 board itself. Blue tooth didn't have enough bandwidth to support streaming audio along with all of the other data.

@Richard R and @d.cochran, thanks for the suggestions. The original Wall-E speaker has no markings on it, so I could not check the ohm rating. I did however connect another 8 ohm speaker and got the same results - continuous annoying static when the EZ-B Camera is turned on :(
I also tried using a different PC in another location of the house, with no change.

I think the HiFi (external Amp) solution is more suitable for a larger robot. There's not much room inside Wall-E once you put in the Ez-B with its power base and connect all the servos (check out the pics on my Wall-E thread). I do have a FiiO Amp that I could hack but would be reluctant to go down this path unless I was sure it would fix the problem of interference from the Camera

I wonder if any of the other 98 people (besides HerrBall & myself) who received hand-built Ez-Bs, have static noises coming from the inbuilt speaker system? Time will tell I suppose I also wonder whether I have a faulty EZ-B?

@Tony1952,

I've been thinking about your sound problem and have a few ideas to throw your way.

First, I noticed a few things when I was struggling with the poor sound issue I was having when first setting up an external amp and speakers on my new V4. Sound quality varied greatly between different sound files and also types of files. I think this was because some of my files were not sampled lower than others. Also in my case I found that my .WAV files played much better than .MP3 files. Try to find higher quality files and see how they sound. Perhaps you can resample your sound files using a sound editor like Sound Forge (at $200 it costs a lot but there are other free programs that will do the same thing. Sound Forge

Second; If that won't fix it maybe you can add a small external amp and use the breakout hole before V4's built in amp and an external speaker. I did did a tutorial on how to do this here:

Breaking Out The Sound From The V4 Ezb

If you don't use the power base, remove the little deans connector and solder wire in for a pigtail power connector you will have lots of extra room in your bot. If you're concerned about a fuse you can use a inline fuse in the positive wire. Here are a few examples of hardware you could use:

In-line AGC Fuse Holder

Mini 5V Audio Ampli Digital Amplifier Board

Hope this solves your problems. Let us know. :)