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
Steve's E4-B4 Build Diary. (R2-D2's Little Brother)
Jim's Project Armadeus
thats been tried before doesnt work well at all,but does help ,a 3 d floor map it the best for navigation sometimes furniture moves alot in a house also.but using only pwm values is not enough,need compass and sensors to detect any changes in the house
that a design i am working on life size biped android with very real face emotions one reason i bought a very good lathe and milling machine cost was high but worth it on the robots here is this forum is too easy more for beginners a real good robot design i found out takes a lot of planning,like my omnibot 2000 project may take another 6 months or more,for calculations like torque ,making is very strong,balance ,big idea i care about super low wattage,too many dont care about saving current on a robot,i guess they dont care if it last a hour or 2 mine i get it to last 12 hours without going to homebase to charge and lot more on other stuff added to it
robotmaker, If EZB never has what is needed for all your hord of robots then why do keep comming back here? Seems you would stay with the platforms that seem to give you everything you require. Why do you insist on coming here and chat up other platforms over EZB and point out your conceived downfalls over and over again? mad
I GUESS you missed the point the other software lacks hardware and sensors and other stuff that EZB has ,that why its my favorate of platforms most all of my robot designs WILL USE EZB like the AI SOFTWARE,the board they use only have motor and feedback control,7 sonars only and 6 IR plus digital port,doesnt have any near what EZB HAS and any other board and a little slower processor,i think is 32 bit at 35 mhz and at the time (3 years ago) i bought 6 boards at $250 each hope someday to use both EZB AND THE OTHER BOARD together ,so not to waste good money ROBOREALM is working on a interface for EZB ,IT add KINECT,navigation and so many many video filters i know DJ is trying to get better AI,he is getting very close, and so far not many video filter for camera yet so your point is wrong (you would stay with the platforms that seem to give you everything you require) IT DOESNT not right to be mad at someone with that red avatar you put up ,its not very nice
will say it again one last time i love EZB a lot more then you or i would not buy 15 of them i thing is one of the best designs made,but like in lif everything as good and bad points including electronics been building robots for over 20 years and so far i see EZB might be the best
all roborealm is mostly for video filters about a 100 or more ,but many other interfaces roborealm list of interfaces and more get added each month,it will a very good add-on for EZB I heard also someone in this forum said that the EZB is almost max out i never get mad at all ever
Not mad, just tired of the constant negative and limiting comments. One or two are OK but you never quite. I get the point. Maybe I should have used tired
none of my points are negative or limiting at all,just the things i found using both board each has it own faults,but i think you think there is any bad faults at all faults dont make a bad board I LOVE MY EZB way more then you do and in the 9 robot clkubs i pass rthat info about EZB HOW GOOD IT IS, but only a few guys from those clubs like it,thomas and mel are 2 i told it about i dont know why they dont like it ,they saw the site and what it can do one club is one of the biggest robotics club and has club meeting at a college,may i go to the meeting its in calif i dont care for that state,since i travel almost all over the world there is a big robotics convention in china this time,hope my work will let me see it just one day going in march there for work
Anyway...
Finally got around to focussing the camera and getting camera tracking working... Not very well for some things due to the lighting conditions of my house (LED warm white lamps aren't the greatest for light output but haven't finished the living room yet).
Tested in the kitchen where there is much better light and it's pretty good at face tracking, colour tracking and movement tracking. Especially now I've setup the config correctly!..
Front panel for the sensors is now all designed too, ready to be made out of some nice Sintra, cut to fit the upper opening in the body's front (where the digital display is on the Omnibot). I wont be rotating the sensors on a servo for the radar, it will be fixed to face forward only.
Have also decided to go for LiPo 7.2v batteries, to start with a single 5000ah and will see how long it lasts before needing to be recharged. Not ordered anything yet though, no point this close to Christmas, it wont be dispatched until after Christmas anyway, so plenty of time for me to convince myself otherwise (again!.. Gone from SLA to LiPo to NiCd to god knows what else so many times so far)...
I am having a few issues with the bluetooth disconnecting though, it may be brownouts or it may be the bluetooth dongle's range, it's something I need to look at. If it's due to the load of the servos and hbridge I'll just knock up a small board which supplies the servos their Vcc without going through the board. The HBridge power is direct from the battery so I know it's not the DC motors causing it. Could be the battery I guess, it's the replacement 6v 4.5ah SLA I got for the Omnibot which I have read is good for power so chances are low.
And I've finally triggered my electronics knowledge that's been stored in my memory for 15 years but not used in as long, I can't believe I struggled to figure out how to build a voltage divider but that's the human brain for you. The good news is, now I have a new soldering iron which actually gets hot enough to melt the solder, I haven't lost my soldering skills... Perfect solder joints all shiney and rounded (unlike the dull flat dry joints my gas iron was giving).
Finally, I'm tempted to keep the neck as long as it is. I'm not 100% sure if the last youtube video I put up was with the long C, short C or modified C bracket (I can't tell...) but once the arms are attached and it's all painted up in it's new colours it should make the neck look a bit shorter... but we will see... that's an easy change to make if it doesn't look right after then.
P.S. Couple of sketches to explain the neck pan/tilt option I tried explaining earlier (apologies for poor quality, taken with camera as scanner is upstairs and I'm lazy).
on the bluetooth problem i have the same problem DJ SAID it was RFI and i agree with 100 % my setup i have almost all my computers 9 of them on WIFI with 2 on 1GIG SETUP Second is i have a X10 MODULES on everything in my house,inc pool and spa,a/c (i love my X10) 100 % FULL AUTOMATION control of everything including my kitchen stuff second i have one of the strongest WIFI SETUP with special antenna so i dont know what is causing it,one reason using direct connection or WIFI to EZB on my pan and tilt using a custom design 360 pan and full tilt foward ,back and side to side .plus at the same height as orginal has
I kinda agree with dshulpius about robotmaker. We always seem to hear both extremes within the same posting,robotmaker, and while its good to hear of shortfalls(few) of EZ-Board/Builder its does get tiresome . I think your pretty amazing robotmaker with all your experiance but try and make your comments positive and not keep bring up the same negative ones!
Thanks for your positive postings and understanding IMO