Servos For Robot Dog

I sent a couple of emails off.  Wife is going to leave me for sure.

Those motor servos are amazing there is even a couple of bipeds being developed based on them.

Be nice if ARC had a driver for them.

This is a great time to be interested in Robotics.

@nink, My wife too...lol.

We can control these motors with a little third party help. They run on CANBUS, which is the system built into your car electronic system. The motors are 3 phase and they use Field Oriented Control (FOC). This creates a sequence for the coils in the motor they kinda fire off in sequence to get the shaft to turn. Because there is no gearing only electromagnetism holding a position there is compliancy in the shaft..that means it has a little bit of spring..like a shock absorber and keeps from tearing apart something like a dog that impacts with such force on the ground.

You can control these motors using many control boards available like the Flipskys that I used on the hoverboard hack on my channel. Those are similar to the robot dog motors. These controllers allow you to connect to the EZB or IOTINY or anything ARC supports using serial or you can use standard PWM like a standard servo control. Without an encoder they are only good for rotational movement, but with a hall effects encoder you can control positional. Then you have a massively strong servo to build a robot with.

$300 for motor $100 per flipsky or other FOC controller , so about $400 per DOF.

Here is an example with a very cheap ($20) FOC controller and an Ardurino with a sketch controller....this acts as positional motor/servo. EDIT: Seems this board is no longer available..and limited by the Atmel onboard.

@fxrtst that is a VERY good find!! I am still having this encoder and and few brushless motors, so I might actually build one of these! That is a nice Christmas present!!

I contacted Dogotix and the only place you can buy is through Alibaba unless you want a large customized order.  There are two dogs on there MIC-01A and MIC-01B

MIC-01A $6500  The MIC-01A has stronger motors and can last 1.5 hours, has the ability to add a realsense D435 (not included) and a Jetson NANO TX2 (not included). Neither the D435 or Jetson Nano are supported today by ARC.  There is a sample? for the MIC-01A for $4545 US but actual $6596 CAD (Robot+ Transaction Fee + Credit card Fee) +13% Tax =$7453 CAD https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Medium-Electric-Driven-Robot-Dog-Based_62491310900.html?spm=a2700.galleryofferlist.normal_offer.d_title.12e06784Vbvz5z

MIC-01B $3250 The MIC-01B  has smaller motors so can handle less payload and walks slower, It runs linux and MIT opensource software but it does have an intel ATOM PC but not sure how much RAM.  I guess you can hack it and add your own sensors and get it to work with ARC but that is a lot of money to drop down if it doesn't work. The MIC-01B for $3250 US but actual is $4872 CAD (Robot+ Transaction Fee + Credit card Fee) +13% tax = $5505. (Ontario sales tax).   https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Medium-Electric-Driven-Robot-Dog-Based_1600144281544.html?spm=a2700.galleryofferlist.normal_offer.d_title.e8646784EXWv1u

Takes 3 weeks for delivery.

@DJ you only pay 5% sales tax :-)

If anyone buys one please post

They don't have stock ???

Messaged seller and got this response. Looks like they are building a new range.

@Nink:

You need to be very careful with internet shopping. I ordered a German shepherd and now this man is living with us.:

@PTP, LOL. that's hilarious!

hahahahhahahahhahahahahahh!