Thanks for your help there, Kleinman. He keeps waving his arms around and disconnecting his arm servos. LOL. The voice recognition and library seems good. I've got a GoPiGo on the way in post with a raspberry pi already. It'll involve learning some more python code (challenge). I would be interested to see what you achieve with modifying your Meccanoid.
Cheers

Well, I bought one of these things on impulse, mainly with the thought of running it on EZ-Robot parts. Here's what I found so far.

The servos have nylon gears, so not too good. However, they are the same size as EZ-Bit servos, with mounts in the same place. It is relativly easy to convert a lever servo to fit in the same place as the servo that comes with the kit. Just have to cut the white part in a couple of places and remove the lever. A rotary servo could also work, but you have to cut more off the white part to make it narrow enough to fit. The horn on the kit servos perfectly fits the EZ servo so everything just goes into place with no problem. In other words, if you are willing to "sacrifice" 8 lever servos, making it work via EZ-Bit parts should work out just fine. I have not gotten to the drive parts on the feet as yet, but I expect that to be easy enough to do as well. Even if it means using an H-Bridge at some point.

I guess the only thing that is stopping me at this point is deciding if it's worth the trouble. I mean, this isn't a great robot in the first place. Either in looks or functionality.

Soliciting thoughts and opinions on this.

My thoughts exactly. I plan to go your way when I have more servos. Originally, when I first saw this for sale, I thought it would make a good cheap platform for a telepresence robot as you dont get much for $400 these days, well not at 1.2mtrs anyway. Its great for bolting on various sensors and the like without having to chop things up to fit. All my friends and visitors have a great laugh with its entertaining features so I recon its money well spent. Now I cant wait to finish JD and get him to do some cool stuff.

Okay, I went ahead with the conversion to EZ-Bits since I managed to get a vision of a sort of cut rate Johnny 5 kind of thing using the basic upper body and a linear actuator or 2. Changing out the 8 basic servos wasn't too big a job using the lever servos. Just have to make a couple of cuts in the white snap-on part and a bit of grinding. Otherwise they fit just fine and the horn fits on perfectly. Screwing the horn on is a bit of a chore, however, since the screw for the EZ-servo is wider than the one for the Meccano servo. You either have to drill out the tiny nylon insert that goes into the horn, or, do what I did, use a small, thin washer and slightly longer screw. Because of the way the horn is put together, it needs one or the other to hold it all together and keep it stiff.

I would have preferred to use rotary servos because they have attachment brackets points on both ends, whereas the lever servos have one set cut off. But there would have been a lot more cutting and grinding because the base is so much thicker and I don't have a small band saw to cut that down easily. Plus, I think if you cut it that thin, there would be no bottom once you were done, but I'm not sure. Still, attaching the servo in the Meccano plastic housing went fine only using the two holes on the end opposite the gear. Plus, there is a lock nut which goes under the servo. That serves as a stop if the servo tends to bend down some due to the lack of the other bracket. Otherwise the rest of the servo mounts go together just as originally designed.

I turned the orange housing 180 degrees so as to mount it on the back instead of the front. That allowed me to fit in the EZ-B4 base so as to give me access for plugging in the wires from the back. The EZ-B4 base fits perfectly in the middle of that housing. Just mounted an on-off switch in the rectangular hole in the upper section and everything was good to go. Created a project to put it through it's paces and all worked out just fine. Got rid of the black box altogether, BTW.

Now, before I go further with mounting on the base ("feet" ), I want to add a couple of rotary servos for the hands and a pair of eyebrows for expressions. Once I do that , I'll see about making up a video.

Just wanted to let others who might be thinking about going this way with it that it's not all that difficult. At least the Mechano kit was reduced to $245 at Brookstone, so the fact I'm not using the original electronics isn't too much of a big deal. I can probably sell the control & servos on EBay and recoup some, though it may not be worth the trouble.

Its great to see you having a go at it. I wont be touching mine for a while yet as I am in the middle of building a JD but I do still want to set up a telepresence bot. Good luck with yours and I hope to hear and see more about your project.

Hi WBS00001,

Post some pictures, and the mods you did. Sounds like your progressing well and I look forward to your video.

RonR

Hi everyone. Ihave been away for a bit cause of health. But I was thinking the same thing with Meccanoid robot. So I got one for christmas. Put it together its ok, it really hits the mark for the kids type thing. Now what DJ was saing about the certification I looked on the back of the manual and they printed it with CE cert but then must have not gotten it so they put white stickers over them.

Anyway I was reading about the people concerned about the plastic being weak. I think its a great way to have a humanoid robot for a better price then aluminum for something like ServoCity. I figured it would have been almost $2000 CND.

So I had a spaire high voltage ultra torque servo from a rock crawler I built years ago so I tried it in the arm elbow. Fit perfect no modifications needed. Now its a 100 servo (Hitec HS-7954SH) So I am going to the hobbie shopthis week and get a high torque and try its fit (Hitec HS-645MG) its in a great price point for a budget. I'll let you know.

I love the idea of turning the controller holder around to the back I am going to that also. I have to figure out the eye lights to see we can use the current ones.

Excellent - thanks for the update! Great to hear you're feeling better and back at roboting