ok, just checking to make sure you are on top of your manufacturer and they aren't slipping in sub-par parts. There are two users in this thread alone, and at least one more this month who claim normal usage (of course, impossible to prove).

When I worked for a hardware phone system vendor, we had issues when we moved some of our manufacturing from Canada to Mexico and China. Mexican company could not get the injection molding right, and the Chinese company left parts off some boards (which we did catch in fixture testing, but it delayed some deliveries while we got them straightened out). Because our boards cost between $1500 and $10,000 depending on the function, we would randomly pull one out of every 100 and check that every component was exactly what we ordered. Other than the missing parts in the first run, we never had them cheat us, but some of our employees had experience from previous jobs where it did happen.

Alan

EZ-Robot pays for the components that go to our manufacturer - the components are ordered and shipped to their warehouse. They don't source components, that's not how it works. EZ-Robot also has our own exclusive manufacturing facility, it's not that we outsource or contract a company to manufacturer. EZ-Robot has a facility exclusive to our manufacturing needs. Nearly a million EZ-Robot servos have been shipped - and 1 servo a month is damaged on this forum. Not bad

Although, it's the very bad for the 1 user per month who experiences a bad servo. I, like you, emphasize... but it's impossible to rectifiy

For me, so far with all the servos I've use on CY, for its arms and head. I have only had one servo ever burn up. Sadly, it was a new servo from Brookstone.

The arm moved a couple times, then stopped (was not even holding anything). Next thing I smelled a little smoke, looked over to see a red flame shooting out if the servo followed by part of the servo wire beginning to melt away.

What a site to see! never seen a flame shoot a servo before.

Was able to turn the robot off and eventually the red flame went away. I took the servo apart, pretty much the entire pcb was a burned out mess.

I think the servo simply just got stuck in a position during a movement, and that over-heated everything. All the other servos are still working fine too.

Thanks for taking the time to give a detailed answer, and great to know more about your operating model.

I have posted many times about the huge number of out of box failures in the cell phone and other consumer electronics industries. The fact that you have so few failures really is amazing and a sign you are doing things right.

Alan

Thanks! It really is rewarding to experience low number of issues.

Ironically, Jeremie and I were having a lengthy conversation today. Sure, it was great to sit in the sofa chairs at the new facility watching construction - man it's going to be a sexy place. But the conversation was great because it touched on this subject.

Quality has always been really important to me - and I have always disliked feeling ripped off with purchases. So I push the QA pretty hard. But the conversation with Jeremie was interesting because it touched on quality and development time. Ezrobot has been pushing hard to release new products... More than the ones you are aware of. And these products are built using components. The challenge of development time is actually a question about component quality review and assisting third parties to better their product.

What I mean from this is that product development uses third part components. And if those third party components do not meet our requirements (or their specification), we have to work with their engineering team to fix their product.

In short, ezrobot product development actually takes longer than it "should" because we work with other component manufacturers to make their stuff better so we can use it. It's a bizarre scenario, but as Jeremie put it "ezrobot is advancing the industry by pushing component manufacturers harder".

its interesting that if the "robot industry" is supposed to be taken seriously... That ezrobot is really one of the only companies actually "consumerising" it. Meaning all these diy component manufacturers get away with murder by not meeting their specifications or just downright don't work at all!

I can't tell you how many servo manufacturers we have gone through to get ours dialed in. And the number of servo revisions? Don't get me started!

Battery chargers alone... We've reviewed and destructive tested dozens - and even when we find one that "works", we still have to work with the manufacturer to fix/tweak features or components.

Starting last month, ezrobot even has our own lipo battery brand now! The new upcoming battery charger is another ezrobot one-off with revision qualities that aren't in their regular version.

If you had an opprotunity to tour the ezrobot facility, we would show you the shelves packed with containers from each component review and revision. In servos alone, there's close to 75 revisions - of just OUR servo! That's how many attempts it takes to get it right. And that's not 1 servo per revision... It's dozens per revision for proper testing!

It isn't easy to make "a product"... Imagine making 30! Ezrobot has dozens of products! We have cameras, ezb, display, plastics, servos, software with hundreds of controls. Man, it's a lot!

Even the ultrasonic distance sensor is changing this summer. We are fed up with these hobby sensors so we designed a piggyback board that converts the sensor into a single wire and filters out more false positives.

I don't get it, that some people are okay with half-working products - not me!

In short, if a servo burns up - sure there's a very slight chance of manufacturing defect. But in more than 99.9% of the time, it's wear and tear or usage related. And when that mosfet pops, be happy it did! because it could have been worse. The number of tests to identify correct components that acted as fail safe took a lot of work.

@DJ,

It seems you missed this:

<Quote>

Roughly 2 weeks ago, I got a JD too. After the excitement of watching JD several dances (several charges, quite continuously during a day) upon finished building, both shoulders "died", one freely moved but no response, and the other locked up but didn't moved nor responded, and ended the cheers and happiness of all the watchers old and young.

Also I got a Six a month ago, until now 2 servos died too.

Upon opening the servos, I can see that one of the FET, if not both, on the little circuit board have the usual sign of burnt-out, and smelt. (Wonder if ezrobot has any replacement of this little circuit board for the servo?)

</Quote>

JD has 16 servos (big and small), and Six has 12 servos, altogether I have 4 servos died (within a month). It is 14+%. (For Six alone it is 33+%.) As I'm "designing" the many different ways of "walking" around with the Six, I would expect more and more servos will die with the FET burnt, during testing and watching the way Six walks. Actually I have order more than 10 spares, it used up quite easily. In your way I have to order more, again, then. (And I restricted my kids to play around with JD so often, only once in a while without re-charge.)

NOT to see those dead servos sitting there without any help or repair, me asking if there is any replacement for the little circuit board without buying the whole servo?

If I were any other ordinary people who bought ezrobot for their kids, very likely it is boxed and put away after a servo or two died; in this way you would never know.

Regards, KC.

Impressive but not surprising.

@kc, sounds like you're a pretty experienced power user! Keep up the exploring and learning.

Thanks @dave