RoboSavvy Forum

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-10-27T09:40:41+01:00

Thank you for your suggestion Joe.

The servos are indeed very good in terms of protocol and capability.
They are however a bit expensive compared to chinese RC servos (which also work with Arduino) and we always felt customer interest in them - for this reason - might be a bit limited.

That's mainly the reason why we haven't invested in producing software and documentation for use with Arduino although this is definitely possible.

We will have a new team member dedicating to tech projects and I'll make sure to add your suggestion to his To Do list

Regards

Statistics: Posted by PedroR — Thu Oct 27, 2011 9:40 am

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-10-27T00:37:06+01:00

Thanks again, Pedro. It's encouraging to hear that the platform is doing so well overseas.

Since you're trying to help it along with your own store, I have a suggestion for you: put out articles/products that emphasize what a great servo (or continuous-rotation motor!) the wCK is in its own right. Make an Arduino plug-in for it, or just show how to speak to it with the standard serial component. Then show how you can start out with just a couple of servos and make a 2-wheeled bot. Oh yeah, you might need to make some wheels for it too. Or make a simple 5DOF robot arm kit. There's so much it can do, but I think people don't realize how versatile and powerful it is even without the RBC module.

Best,
- Joe

Statistics: Posted by Joe — Thu Oct 27, 2011 12:37 am

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-10-26T16:18:06+01:00

Hi Joe

Robobuilder is REALLY popular in Korea (I've been there and seen it with my own eyes ) and it's also doing very well in Europe.

RoboSavvy is one of their lead distributors on this side of the world and we have offered direct support to all customers who buy from us.

You're not the first US user or potential US customer that mentions "poor support and poor penetration in the US".
I don't really know how that perception got into the US market but on our end, Robobuilder has always been very responsive and their products have been doing well.

I also believe that the fact that Trossen adding Robobuilder to their line up and a few months later dropping it completelly didn't really help its penetration in the US market.

I can tell you what I've told other US customers before: the early batches of Robobuilders experienced issues with gears breaking occasionally; that's a known fact.
Since then Robobuilder has upgraded the main gear on their servos to Metal and that has significantly improved reliability. We haven't had any such complaints after that upgrade.

Apart from that we get really low incidents with Robobuilder. I think that since we started selling them we've had 2 issues where we had tor replace the controller.
We keep both controllers as well as servos in stock so we're able to offer very fast response time for support requests.

Additionally, Robobuilder has been investing continuously on the platform using a two fold strategy:

1) On one hand they didn't release much of the protocol or C code in the first year and only gradually released this information into the public.
This allowed new interest to continue being drawn to the platform. Currently:
- there is a documented Serial API that lets you query and control the full robot (sensors, servos, play motions, etc) that is something no other Humanoid has out of the box

- Support for MSRDS (although the full Serial API is not exposed unfortunatelly).

- Community built .Net libraries (built by member l3v3rz) that encapsulate the serial protocol and let you control and query the Robot using a more powerful MCU.

- They've also released an Android APK to serve as Remote control for Robobuilders with Bluetooth (this is was released a year ago I believe).
There is also a second APK, contributed by forum member l3v3rz.

We also worked with them towards introducing intermidiate level options such as the Bluetooth module (1 unit for the Robot only). They didn't offer this option at the time of release (only sold it in pairs plus a serial board) but we worked together to bring it as new option and put a reasonable price tag on it.

2) On the other hand they've invested in adding new accessories to the platform.
The success of this strategy has been a bit limited in EU.

a. For a while we offered the possibility to upgrade the servos to Full Metal gears (which let you use a 3 cell Lipo and boost servo torque up to 14kg I believe)

b. They've also released a full Metal Brackets Kit

c. A Hip Kit has been added to extended the robto to 18 DoF

We used to stock all the options above but interest has been fading in option a. and b.
We believe this is mostly due to cost: Robobuilder is positioned as a value platform and if you start adding expensive extras you easily spend as much in extras as you spent on the Robot itself.

For that reason we're now investing more on partial Metal brackets kits which for this Christmas: we already have the Metal Fighting Forearms and we'll be finally adding Metal Chests (this is mostly modding).

On our end, we also need to do our homework and have been offering Packages of 5710 and 5720 that extend beyond the basic offer (addind Distance and Acc Sensors) and position the Robots closer to competing offers in terms of features (while retaining low price) and make them appealing to the EU user.

One of the keys for the success of Robobuilder on RoboSavvy was the fact that from day 1 we offered the Distance sensor with the 5710K (stock 5710Ks have no sensors at all (only Sound Sensor)).
It was not a big thing, but it made a huge impact in the way users perceived the Robot: at the time only Bioloid Comprehensive was out with 3x IR Sensor and Sound Sensor so we were able to approximate the 5710K in terms of features by adding the Distance Sensor.

Today we still work on new packs and features and we're preparing new offers for Christmas, going back to basis and all the way up to full extras.

It's a continuous work but I personally believe and like the Robobuilder platform for the fact that it's affordable and offers a wide range of options for Beginners to advanced users with a very smooth learning curve.

Sorry for the long post... I tend to get a bit excited about Robobuilder but I hope I was able to clarify the current status with Robobuilder.

You do have a point though: their roadmap for other products keeps changing unfortunately and they often get ahead of themselves announcing products for which they don't yet have a release date.

Announcing a 150kgf servo is not for the faint of heart so I assume they're hard at work on it.

Regards

Statistics: Posted by PedroR — Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:18 pm

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-10-26T15:16:40+01:00

Thanks, Pedro — I appreciate the update even if there isn't much to say.

I love the RoboBuilder platform, but I worry sometimes about whether they're going to stick around... their competitors (currently) offer a wider range of servo strengths, allowing for an upgrade path for when you want to build a bigger/stronger/better robot. As long as RoboBuilder does not, it's going to be perceived as an entry-level platform only. To that problem, add that their support is weak, their website is awful, and they're virtually unknown here in the U.S. (I think that maybe I and two of my friends own the only three RoboBuilders in the country!), and it becomes hard to see how they stay in business.

But I do think they have a great product, so I'm going to stick with them as long as I can. I sure would love to see some servos in the 25 or 30 kg cm range, though!

Statistics: Posted by Joe — Wed Oct 26, 2011 3:16 pm

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-10-26T09:30:04+01:00

Hi Joe

I guess a year has now passed but Robobuilder hasn't yet geven us any definitive dates for release.

We know work is underway towards getting servos to production quality but they've really taken an ambitious project here: one of the servos has 150kgf of torque so I can imagine this needs a serious testing and improvement loop.

As I mentioned, we are not aware of any definitive dates at the moment.

Regards
Pedro.

Statistics: Posted by PedroR — Wed Oct 26, 2011 9:30 am

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-10-25T19:47:35+01:00

Any news on the new servos?

Thanks,
- Joe

Statistics: Posted by Joe — Tue Oct 25, 2011 7:47 pm

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-04-13T19:27:37+01:00

Hi

we have some news regarding some of the brackets used on the T01.

I've made a forum post here http://robosavvy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=30882 about this.

Well be getting the metal/Fighting forearms as well as the Metal Chests (in Red and Blue).

The remainder or the parts used on the T01 are part of the Full Metal Brackets Kit (http://robosavvy.com/store/product_info ... cts_id/533) although in this assembly they use them in a different way (look for example for the leg brackets. they're secured to the servos only by 2 screws instead of 4).

As for the RED colar that pops out of the Blue chest it's a metal reinforcement to assemble in the empty space between the servos in the chest.
No pricing for the metal head yet.

The new products (Chest and Fighting Forearms) should be showing up in our online store in the next week.

Regards
Pedro

Statistics: Posted by PedroR — Wed Apr 13, 2011 7:27 pm

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-03-30T15:19:53+01:00

Hi

As for the T01 we have not received any further information. As I mentioned the information we got was that the T01 was not built by Robobuilder; it was built by one of their customers for a competition.

However, do note that the T01 is partly based on the Metal Brackets kit available here http://robosavvy.com/store/product_info ... cts_id/533
This kit does not include the forearm though but includes some other parts that make up the T01.

As for the T01 Robobuilder promised to look into it but to be honest with the release of their new servos I think they're not having much time to look into any other requests.

I will post on the forum should there be any further developments about this.

Regards
Pedro

Statistics: Posted by PedroR — Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:19 pm

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-03-30T11:59:15+01:00

Is there any further news on T01 brackets ?
The extended forearm/hand looks very useful .
Maybe they could sell us a limited number and or they could also provide a build thread for all items included ?
Keen to get a set as it looks great !!

Statistics: Posted by rep001 — Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:59 am

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-03-10T12:04:17+01:00

We got offical information about this:

The T01 was designed by a Competitor and designed to enter a competition.
It looks like a heavilly modded 5710K with some parts from the Metal Brackets Kit, some custom fabricated parts and the new Head.
At this point they are not planning on releasing the T01 under the Robobuilder brand since it's not their design but we're trying hard to get our hands on one and find out pricing.

As for the Head Mod, it has been released in Korea only. Robobuilder is now translating the documentation to English which should be ready by EOM.

Finally the high torque servos are being finalized. We expect the brochures to be ready by EOM and shipping/production should follow shortly.

We'll keep you posted about updates.

RoboSavvy

Statistics: Posted by robosavvy — Thu Mar 10, 2011 12:04 pm

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-03-09T13:51:35+01:00

Thanks for the tip.

We've emailed Robobuilder to find out more about this new Kit.

It looks like an Add On to the current Robobuilder design and I was wondering how it compares to the Metal Brackets Kit http://robosavvy.com/store/product_info ... cts_id/533

Its seems to me the T-01 is a more simplified version of the Metal Brackets Kit and is built using Metal Joints, the Metal Brackets in the Legs and Metal Chest and head and new Metal Brackets in the Arms. The head also seems to move so there's probably a 17th servo...

Hopefully it will be less expensive than the Full Metal brakcets kit. We have to admit that despite being a nice upgrade, the full metal brackets kit ( http://robosavvy.com/store/product_info ... cts_id/533
) is a bit expensive compared to the price of the Robot itself.
Our main buyers of the original Metal Bckts kit are universities who take Robobuilders to Competitions (they add the brackets and replace the microcontroller with a design of their own).

We'll post more information on this T01 and head as soon as we receive it.

It'll also be nice to see if someone decides to combine it with a Roboard 050 (not out yet but check the Roboard forum). That would be something else!

Oh and remember come and visit us at Makerfaire next weekend and bring your robots!
We'd really like to meet with our forum members! (and maybe even do some robot fights )

Regards
RoboSavvy

Statistics: Posted by robosavvy — Wed Mar 09, 2011 1:51 pm

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-03-06T20:48:46+01:00

The T-01 looks great , I can't wait to get hold of one of those. And I assume the head mod will be available at the same time. As for the high speed movements in the video i guess a servo upgrade is required to do it justice .

Statistics: Posted by rep001 — Sun Mar 06, 2011 8:48 pm

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-03-06T17:55:55+01:00

You'll notice the Robot on the video has a modded head (I'm not sure if this will become a product)

Seems like there is now a new bracket kit to do the head mod:

http://robobuilder.net/product_img/s_img/1%5F037.jpg

http://robobuilder.net/product/product_ ... %AE&sname=

Also a fighting robot kit T-01 ! ... (hopefully the T stands for Toy not Terminator)

http://robobuilder.net/product/product_ ... %AE&sname=

Statistics: Posted by l3v3rz — Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:55 pm

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-03-02T17:04:49+01:00

i'ts really regretable that they're plagerized Tyberius Robot.

As far as we know they're not planning on producing that Robot (ie the frames for the robot to build as a kit).

As for the specs oft he servos we had access to that brochure and they seem to be going after the EX-106 as well as the whole Robotis line up of RX servos.

Robobuilder had already promised high power/high torque servos when they first released the 5710K (the first docs mentioned that) but in the end they didn't deliver anything so we're in a state of mind of "wait and see"

The Robot Kits (5710, 5720) themselves although having average specs for the servos (torque/speed) do present a very nice price/quality relation. The software is really the part that's lagging behind other offers that have been appearing (Roboplus for instance).

Having said this if you're going to couple it with a more powerful computer to control it (attach a Bifferboard or roboard to it or do control over Bluetooth), Robobuilder is still probably the kit with the best API/Protocol for external control that we have on Robosavvy.

The product development cycle for Korean products seems to be a bit slower than we're used to in the western world.

Statistics: Posted by robosavvy — Wed Mar 02, 2011 5:04 pm

Robobuilder at CES and New High Torque Servos

2011-01-24T19:04:59+01:00

Iv seen pretty much every iteration of Tyberius's Giger robot. They pretty clearly ripped off his bot. I mean it doesn't even look like they tried not too. His bots been featured in a ton of publications too, so its pretty well known. There might be some subtle differences but theirs no mistaking where the original design came from.

Statistics: Posted by Rift — Mon Jan 24, 2011 7:04 pm