Humanoid #2

Kenny Storm

USA
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Hey everybody, its been awhile since I built a bot, and I'm back to humanoids again lol. This is a cheap 15 DOF robot kit that I found on ebay. All the kit included was powdercoated aluminum brackets, screws, and those awesome aluminum servo horns. No instructions. So, I kinda built it my own way, with a layout similar to JD. I used MG995 servos because theyre cheap, metal geared, and (supposedly) 208 oz/in of torque. only the head servo gets its power from the EZ-B, all the rest get power from a Castle Creations 10 amp regulator. It's not enough. From what I read, these servos draw 2 amps each...gonna add more regulators later. Ok, enough chit chat, watch the video and lookit the pics!

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By — Last update

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#2  

Thanks for sharing. Great job putting it together.

:):):):) j

#3  

That's a lot of servo commands to get actual walking movements. Very good build and wiring harnesses also.

#4  

Thanks, both of ya:) I try to keep a clean build, I dont like having to rifle thru a mess of wire when I inevitably have problems lol. The walking movements look complicated, but its only 4 frames in autoposition. I suppose the swinging arms aren't necessary, but the weight transfer of those heavy hands make it walk better:) Like JD, there's only six servos total for the legs as opposed to my old robophilo's six per leg. The philo was waaay complicated to make walking movements, especially because the servo's calibration point would change as I was using it due to the ultra cheap servos. It didnt help that they regularly got bottomed out, which DJ has proven is really tough on servos...Look real close, 3 of those cheap servos made their way into this robot's hands lol. Honestly, I'm having more fun with this than I did with the philo lol...and building this was about $100 cheaper:)

#5  

Oh, and one more thing, I need name suggestions for this guy, I can't come up with anything good lol

#7  

I was gonna do the same, but my impatience took over lol. Couldn't wait. Well, that and this aluminum kit is bigger, stronger and cheaper (albeit heavier) than jd's extruded plastic. I'm always on a tight budgie, its one of the many joys of being employed full time in the "working poor" class. I'm still gonna order JD's head for this though...I wonder if DJ can print the head in black instead of white lol

#8  

Ya, that head might stand out, lol.

#9  

Nice. You wouldn't happen to have the ebay link would you? Rumor has it that I'm getting Roli for Xmas but I'd like to check this kit out as well.

#10  

Theres a few different kits, just search "dof robot" on ebay, theres a 9, 12, 15 and 17 dof versions.They come with all the hardware, no servos. Mg995 servos cost $30 for a set of four, whis is a great deal considering standard futaba s3003's usually cost $10 each and are only 42 oz/in of torque instead of the 208 that you get from the mg995's. Its all shipped from china though, shipping is usually frew, just expect it to take like 2 weeks or so to get to you. Totally worth it:)

#11  

At the current time we only have plans to produce the EZ-Robots in white, but who knows what the future will hold! Its certainly not tough to change the color of the plastics....

In the meantime, if you find someone with a 3D printer (or eBay/UPS etc) it would be easy to have one printed yourself. Or even the quick and dirty route of dyeing or painting it yourself!

#12  

Thanks Mark:) Its kinda funny, I found a temporary head for him, and its white lol:) I also added two 96x64 pixel oled displays. And some new moves.

#13  

wow those eyes are amazing! how was it integrating them into the ezb?

#14  

Not bad at all. They each have their own processor and accept serial commands from the ezb's d16 and d17. it accepts two byte hex commands like "SendSerial(d16,9600,0x55) to initialize it. there's a whole list of commands to draw shapes and load pictures and stuff. What you saw in that video was a preloaded program installed on each chip that runs as soon as you give them power. I wrote some scripts for drawing eye dots and such, and they work. but often times, using sendserial commands jerks all the servos at once causing a brownout. It's the only time that happens. not quite sure how to fix that...

#15  

Thanks for the tip Kenny:) Do you mind me asking, Jeepers Creepers, where did you get those Peepers?

#16  

Boom, there it is, somebody had to say it lol. The eyes are 4d systems uoled-96-g1 sgc displays, which are discontinued lol. They have new versions that work better, and they only cost about $40 each. Spend the extra money and get their programming cable, you'll probably end up having to reflash them at some point. They need to be turned on and off at specific times during flashing, and their cable supports that, its hard to build a cable with that feature. They also handle up to a 2gig micro sd card for storing and recalling pictures and videos. Google 4d systems, they got all kinds of displays and shields lol

#17  

Kenny, Your robot is very awesome! Did you add the great looking hands extra from the 15 degrees of freedom found on Ebay? Can you give more description on the robot you built? It is very cool! You have given it great moves with EZB. Your building skills are great. The eyes have it! Thank You, Steve S

#19  

New video with the mobile app. Music copyright The Who:) Big thanks to DJ and crew, the app is awesome:)

PRO
Belgium
#20  

cool robot love it. :D

#21  

awesome, got to get me some of those eyes....

PRO
Belgium
#22  

please link where you get the eyes. :D

PRO
Belgium
#25  

what brand is the robot?

#26  

This is the kit I bought; it was just brackets, screws and servo horns, no servos. No instructions either, just the picture. I arranged it how I wanted instead:) kinda makes him one-of-a-kind:) www.ebay.com/itm/15DOF-Biped-Robot-Educational-Robot-Mount-Kit-Servo-Bracket-Ball-Bearing-e-/281165781329?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4176c95951

And these are the servos I used.

www.ebay.com/itm/MG995-Metal-Gear-High-Torque-Servo-for-HPI-XL-RC-Boat-Car-Helicopter-/191007022671?pt=Radio_Control_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2c78e7de4f

In order to drive all those servos, I have a 7.4volt 1600milliamp hour lithium polymer battery. The servos can draw up to 2 amps each, (up to 30 amps total)which is too much current for the ez-b. I have modified my ez-b in a way that voids my warranty. I scratched the ext_power trace off the underside of the board and ran external power wires from the ez-b's power connector. I can't stress enough that you can destroy your ez-b if this mod isn't done correctly. The ez-b still has its fuse, but the rest of the servos are getting the full unregulated and unfused power of the battery. I keep a fire extinguisher nearby lol.

PRO
Belgium
#27  

wow you design the robot.thats cool. +grippers.:D atleast you can use your robot.my bioloid chutts off in 15 min,especially the hip servo's and i dont understand the Y x z INVERSE KINMATICS blush do you know the jo-zero robot?

#28  

That Jo-zero robot is pretty cool lookin. It seems that they're pretty hard to find though. Bioloid is a good robot too, way better than mine. I bet you'll be able to use a ezbv4 in yours:)

PRO
Belgium
#29  

on sale

also to find on robi robot page as kit.jo-zero type2

#30  

.@Kenny Are You Using AutoPosition FoR Your Movements? I Too Love The Mobile App. It's Fun To Show AND Impresses Everyone
Everyone I Show It To .

#31  

@Antron007 yup, its entirely the autopositioner and one init script. I've shown this robot to a lot of people, they're always impressed:) with the phone, its a total game changer:)

#32  

Game changer. I couldn't agree more. Sorry for the last post. I was using my phone on lunch break and the forum input acts funny in the Android browser.

Speaking of auto position, I'm not sure if this is possible but.... I know you can have it set up to move the servo while adjusting (writing new values to) it but, can it, because it would be super cool if it did, read the position of the servos?

Purpose: Make a frame, Release the servos, Manually re-position the robot, Make new frame.

You probably couldn't get too stingy with the frames. I would expect erratic behavior if you try too move to large a distance with just 2 frames but, I think it would make the positioning process go by a bit quicker. And what would be EZ-er than that? (@DJSure;) )

Anyway Kenny, robots like yours are what really showed me I could affordably move from Transformers to making robots. I still collect them mind you, now, I just eventually will build one. I love that yours is EZ Powered.

PRO
Belgium
#33  

howlong can you program the robot before you have to stop for overheating the servo's. blush

#34  

@Kenny Storm, under frames you can check a box for this action repeats. Request have it so you could enter a one for one time, so on. What do you think?

:):):):) j

#35  

@Antron It would be really cool of my servos could send position data back, but the hardware isnt there. the board only sends pulses to the servo, but the servo cant send any info back. dynamixel servos can send position data back, I thought @nomad's bioloid had that feature....or at least could be added or something...i dunno.

As far as how many frames to use per action, i start simple with a small number of frames and just add more if i need them. it only takes 4 frames for the walk, but i bet i could benefit from 6. its a simple robot though, for something with more dof in the legs, it gets way more complicated.

@Nomad: I havent had much of a problem with overheating. When I create frames, I relieve most of the load on the servos by hanging him from his shoulder servo mounts. This works great as long as your hanging wire doesnt interfere with the robot's movement. my 1600mah lithium pack lasts for almost an hour if its hanging, about a half hour if he's on his feet:)

I'm gonna post his .ezb file in the "incomplete robots" section of the cloud, it'll be labelled "newbot". Its kinda interesting to see how I set up the AutoPosition actions:)

More to come:) I have a v4 on the way too, along with more servos and brackets. This guy is in junior form, I wonder how far i can take it:)

btw: go hawks!

PRO
Belgium
#36  

i uses the robotis program.that has all data what the servo's doing. i dont understand the YXZ in robotis ,so my servo's from the legs chutt off rapidly. am hoping this will be better whit the ARC. i made a video aldo its not very clear one but you can see all data like, heating ID angle power loading.

#37  

Hi, did the grippers come with the robot kit? The 15dof kits I found don't picture the grippers,

Would you consider sharing your project on the cloud?

Thanks

#40  

Its been awhile since I posted, but I've still been busy making changes to the 'ol humanoid:) Ive added four more servos to the legs, bringing the count to 19 dof. 5 per leg, four per arm and one for the head:) he's now 22" tall and weighs 5lbs lol. User-inserted image

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#41  

@Kenny- I see your ez-robot key chain found a good home. I love this bot. I'm honestly surprised there are not more of them here on the ez-robot forums.

#42  

Yeah, i figured the keychain would get ruined if it was on my keyring, thought it would make a better badge lol. Humanoids are difficult because of how many servos need to move together, i think thats why we dont see many here. The autopositioner is awesome, but it needs one more feature: the ability to change the speeds of individual servos from frame to frame. You can do that now, but it means bailing on the autopositioner and writing scripts instead, using virtual robot as a reference. Im getting it, but i dont wanna go too far with autopositioner before i have to start from scratch when i get my v4:)

Canada
#43  

Wow! Looks amazing @Kenny! Good job!

#44  

Even more surprising (or maybe not) is the lack of videos of any humanoid using the ezb (except for Kenny and JD).... Kenny how about a new video of the big guy doing something? C'mon guys lets see your humanoids in action... :)

#45  

That looks awesome! I agree- more videos! :D

PRO
Belgium
#46  

great work.especially whit all those servo's.i made one myself.it took awhile before i got it, wright all the servo's.

#47  

I like that walking gait on your bioloid:) all those dynamixels doing their job is just music to my ears:) I'll make another video for sure, i just need to make some more movements. All he can do right now is stand up from lying on his front lol. Might be a couple days, gonna spend some time on it tonight. Thanks for the kind comments:)

PRO
Belgium
#48  

the head moves whit remote.a good way to center all servo's is do the off set not one by one but, all at the same time.means unscrew all horns,do the off set then srew back on.

#50  

I got yer bump right here, pal:) Havent done much, gonna have to rewrite all the frames after i get my v4, so this is all I have for now.

PRO
Belgium
#52  

did you find a name yet? name (storm) maybe.

#53  

Havent used this bot in awhile, decided it was time to get some stuff done. It walks forward and backward with the new legs and i extended the arms by an inch and a half or so. Theres an accelerometer behind the battery in the chest. I wrote a script that polls the accelerometer every five seconds to check if the robot is on its face or back. If its standing, nothing happens. If its on its face or back, it stands up automatically. Heres a long walking video.

PRO
Belgium
#54  

kenny

very nice walk.love it.

#55  

Nice Kenny. That looks like the way I walk after I've been sitting on the couch for a few hours. :P

#56  

the walking is awesome! it looks like the legs were re worked to kind of resemble the Robi robot legs. I love that lay out! you should take a look at how they mounted the head with 2 servos they get very good natural movement out of the head. ill try to post some pics.

but again awesome walking motion.

any chance you can show us how you set up the accelerometer? please.

#57  

Looks great, have you gotten a V4 yet?

PRO
Synthiam
#58  

Kenny has a v4 - but it's not in this humanoid (yet). I met Kenny in Seattle a few weeks ago - he brought a Lipo charger to me when I was SOL! https://synthiam.com/Community/Questions/7279

I saw his robot - it's really cool

#59  

Glad Kenny could save the day! My robot Dave has his new V4 and is being reprogrammed. I need to get his camera installed in his head. His has much more power now!

#60  

LOVE LOVE your robot and how he has come along. I am new to all this, and really liked how yours has turned out. Thanks for sharing.

Ken

#61  

Hi I want to know if you could share the project ARC of the humanoid robot DOF. I ask this giveaway I created the same for my seven year old son but I have no idea how to put the function. Thank you.