Now I have the EZ-B kit and the Hearoid it's time to start my Showcase thread.
I still haven't decided on a name for him yet, all suggestions are welcome.
I won this robot on ebay weeks ago, for the past 2 weeks he has been waiting for me to collect him...
Today was the day, a road trip to pick him up and bring him back to his new home...
In his new home (with Omnibot and Wall-e in the background totally unaware they are next in line to be opened up)
It wasn't long before this happened...
Now waiting to go in the dishwasher to get nice and clean.
The plan is to make him autonomous, running 24/7 (except for when he knows to go charge himself up) but will also be adding in the various image tracking options.
The only other slight modifications to be made to him are to convert the head to tilt & pan which will involve having to give him a small neck.
The head will include the camera. I haven't yet decided to fit it in one of his eyes or to make it his nose. The issue to overcome with this is the blue tint on the bubble head. The mouth will have a light or some lights in which flicker when he speaks.
The arms will be given some life with servos at the shoulder joints and the elbows provided I can get them to fit in there nicely.
Ultrasonic sensor will be in his chest, probably on a servo to give a wider view.
Original drive wheels and gearbox seem to be in very good shape so will plan to reuse those and just replace the existing motors for the modified servos if they can manage the task.
Speaker and microphone will be in the original positions - if it's not broke why fix it?
Not too big a project but enough to give me a test, help me learn and bring an old robot back to life.
Other robots from Synthiam community
Mastersailor's Noisy Boi (Trademark Pending)
Kullthulu's Artemis - The Household Service Bot
i have a keen eye on your topic about the sensors as my big build will need a lot of them for sensing different things, different distances etc. It looks like it's going to be using at least 3EZBs for the servos so that's 30ADC ports (although some will be used for monitoring other things).
But that's not Melvin the Hearoid, Melvin is simple and only needs to detect objects just before he crashes in to them or detect people getting too close. The sensor I used does that very well (I have 2 more to fit to him yet though plus the sonar ping/echo sensor)
i desgn circuits to use only one EZB and many analog ,or digital or servo's
I read through your posts and I had a couple of questions:
Did you need to use high torque servos for your robot's neck?
Can you post of picture of the +6v board you referenced on this other thread: High Power Servo
I'm rebuilding a Robie Sr, so I'm very interested in your build progress.
The neck was a bit of a nightmare but only due to the height it added (and still does). I tried mini servos and the mini servo pan/tilt bracket but it wasn't anywhere near good enough. So I upgraded to full size and had high torque servos in there (although running from the EZB power not 6v). It's something I want to go back to and try to get the height down a little although it's not that bad.
Servos in the neck are Tower Pro MG995.
The board I referenced to in the other topic is very basic... A small piece of strip board (not sure if that's what it's called over that side of the pond), 0.1" spacing with a copper strip from one end to the other on each row. I took a few servo extensions and cut the red and black from the male end, soldered these to the strip board and left the other end so the servo can plug in. Male end plugs in to EZB to give only the signal wire. Power board supplies both +6V and Ground to the servo (or female end) I soldered the +6V and Ground from the 6V regulator to the strip board which gave one row +6V and the other Ground. And viola, basic break out board for 6V.
I would post photos but I never took any and it's currently buried deep inside Melvin.
Arms on the other hand need High Torque servos and +6V to lift and hold without too much struggle. I haven't finished the arms yet as I am not happy with them but the servos now do as good a job as can be expected.
Elbow joints were high torque and +6V mini servos. These still struggle at certain angles.
Hands are just cheap and nasty (suspected) knock offs, they are fine.
Perfect description, thanks!
If you're looking for a new neck bracket, I purchased this bracket from lynxmotion. The tilt range isn't very steep, but the gap between the base of the Robie neck and the shoulder is only slightly more than the height of a servo. I'd estimate about 5 to 7 centimeters altogether, but that's just from memory.
That's the bracket I have on it at the moment. I did have it with the long c bracket to begin with but replaced it for a short c at Christmas... it's still quite long.
I am playing with the idea of fixing the tilt servo flat to the base of the neck, fitting the pan servo to the tilt (with a hole cut in the base of the neck assembly to accommodate the tilt motion) and fixing the head to the servo horn of the pan bracket (if that makes sense). I think I posted a quick sketch some time ago (so back a few pages) of that idea... But it means cutting the base of the neck which I have trimmed down and filled in with fibreglass so am trying to get to like the slightly longer than it should be neck.
The other idea was to cut out all of the part inside the base of the neck (hopefully you know the part I mean) and have the pan servo lower down inside the body of the robot.
I know exactly what you mean.
Your idea in the sketch may limit your head movement...or at least make it a little awkward. If the tilt function is mounted to the body, then you'll be limited to only having a tilt along the forward facing, center line of your robot. Your robot will have a hard time seeing below/above his left and right shoulders and maintain a horizontal based line of sight. The tracking grid lines on the camera views may not function for you if you pan the head rather than turn the whole body.
I may not be describing this very well.
I understood it, I'd thought of that which probably helped understand it a bit. It's one reason I've not changed the neck for 2 months. I've learnt to deal with it the length it is, and it's a lot better with the short C bracket rather than the Long C bracket, although the bracket hits the servo but it makes for a nice stop to save the head leaning too far forwards or backwards and doesn't damage anything.