Elvia the EZ Robot powered Android-Elvis "Hack" I have been away from robotics for a while, spending time with my brother, who recently lost his courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. He loved coming over to fly and record vids on the drone. I purchased the WooWee Elvis from EBay that already had all the electronics removed. After reviewing some of "Hacks" on the net, I decided I would try using existing parts that I already had on hand, to convert the bot to an EZ Robot. First I disassembled the unit. Then I removed the control boards from numerous EZ Robot servos and attempted to control as many of the existing original DC motors as possible. I was able to convert 4 DC motors using the original Elvis potentiometers with EZ Robot servo control boards. The neck motor operated well with a control board from an old 1/4 scale servo. I had to find the correct min. and max. number combinations to operate a motor forward, stop, and reverse. I cut out the boards from numerous new servos, because sometimes I had the magic smoke. New servos were installed for the eyes up/down, top lip, head tilt right/left, head rock forward/back, and jaw. Because the new jaw servo had a different shape, it required offsetting the face about 3/8" forward for clearance. The head tilt and rock servos were fitted with the original worm gears removed from the Elvis motors. Both of those servos had to be allowed to pivot, same as original motors. The new servos had slightly less travel, but worked well allowing her head to roll around similar to original movements. My wife helped pick out the half price wig, and instructed makeup work. Having an Amazon Dot, I wanted a female robot. I have not had much success with the sound servo for realistic mouth movement. The silicone skin and animatronic eyes are good quality, and make the robot more realistic. The wig and smearing makeup are a real hassle if changing out a servo, I may eventually slap a ball cap on it!
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I love it Steve. I almost fell off my chair when it curled it's lip.
Great to see you are back building again. I'm so very sorry to hear about your brother. So sad.
Bob, D.J., Tony, and Dave, thank you for the kind words. Bob, I revisited the "Talk Servo" and made some progress. You are right, it performs better when it is tweaked for each individual application. Have it pretty good on short phrases, but still needs timing adjustment for longer phrases. Thanks
my old terminator version
Elvia is a little bit more "sexy" haha
Smarty, Your video is great. Did you utilize a common servo control board? Do you have plans to use the jaw and neck mechanism? Thanks for sharing. Steve S
Elvia has a few updates including a new hat, and new digital servo for top lip. The wig was too much of a hassle, hard to service her. She is interacting with an Echo Dot and displaying her emotions. Elvia uses the PCSpeaker Sound servo for mouth movement which allows Alexa voice through the USB Sabrent microphone input. She is not using it in this video.
I think that for the mouth you need two servos:
That lip curl is an impersonation of Elvis Presley. Back in the 60's, all over the world the girls fainted dead when he looked at them, sang a few words, girated the hips and curled his lip like that. It always creeped me out a little. sick However on Steve's bot it's hilarious. Maybe I just don't feel as threatened now as did from the real "King" of Rock and Roll.
Updates include removal of the jawbone, installing a new mouth lever with a longer folcrum point giving more realistic talking movement, a Sabrent USB audio card, and new servos. Installed 2 new HobbyKing Digital HV coreless servos for the mouth and upper lip. This application is very demanding on servos, and burned up many, even after much adjustment. These have operated fine so far, but are noisy. I am glad D.J. annouced a new replacement HD Servo, that is great news. Another update is a Sabrent USB audio card allows Alexa input directly into ARC. The audio card was not used in the last video. The input moves two mouth servos on my robot using Sound servo PC Speaker. The output can be sent to an amplied speaker, because my robot is noisy. Simple text Say("") commands also work with this setup, eliminating having a separate program file for TalkServo setup. The Sabrent USB audio input becomes your microphone, so I must remove it to use my default laptop microphone for VR. We have numerous Alexa controlled devices, light plugs, and switches in our home. I thought it only natural to bring Alexa into my robotoics. The skill used in the video is called "Word Master", a fast paced back and forth with Alexa that really forces you to think. New skills and options will only make robotics better. My Echo Dot just gave me an alarm reminder to use my Symbicort, that was my wife's idea. I need some custom Alexa commands to better integrate Alexa into my robotics. Thank You, Steve S
HobbyKing servo
Sabrent USB Audio