The KHR-1HV Chronicles

[PaulP]

Being a long term owner of a 1HV (bought mine about a year ago just after they were released), I would like to post a few comments about my experience with it.

As a kit it is comprehensive and seemingly has all the movements you want but it has a few drawbacks.

There are possible quality issues.. 3 servos have blown in the time I've had mine. All 3 have since been looked at and 1 was down to a motor seizure, the other 2 were due to inferior FETS being installed. The latter 2 are now back up and working fine with new FETS. The 1st one is scrap.

I know some will say 'abuse' and others will say 'fair wear and tear' but I've been assured this was not the case.

Which brings up the next problem. Support. Unless like me you are lucky enough to find one or two people who really do know what they are talking about then your only recourse is some lengthy meaningless conversations with someone in Japan. The same goes for upgrades by the way. When the new board was released I was told that they couldn't help me in the U.K.

The software is good but buggy. The servo's (when they are good) are stunning. Very powerful and accurate but after a while show signs of wear because of the plastic bearings. This causes slack and backlash in the movements.

Others have mentioned the epoxy brackets. They are strong but also somewhat elastic and add to the backlash effect.

Someone mentioned a good walking gait as the holy grail. Its true, Ive striven to achieve one for a while and got close but not there yet.

My experience has been that you need fairly quick moves to maintain a good walk. The quick movements and sudden stops cause the bot, which is quite tall to sway severely and the elastic joints and backlash all add up to a tottering, unsteady walk. More of a wobble or stumble from one skidding foot to the other.

The leg rotation joints are well positioned and very useful but just below them are the servos that allow the bot to do the splits. These are very weakly positioned and almost useless. From a standing position they cannot support the weight of the upper torso and will strip the gears. The only way to use them is to lean the bot until it balances on one leg, then use the other foot to assist in lifting the body. Sure enough though the servos will then hold in the position.

I know this sounds as If I'm down on this bot but thats not true, I am sure that owners of other bots have as many gripes about theirs.

Apart from the servo's Ive already mentioned, NOTHING has broken or failed. All the threads are still good and all the brackets are still in one piece. The software doesn't seem to work properly on VISTA but there again what does.

[plingboot]

interesting post paul,

totally agree on your points.

my purchase decision was based on aesthetics and hip servos, but i have to agree that there are some definite downs to the kit.

Aside from the lack of english support - kondo clearly has a good market in japan and sees english support as low on priority - which might be fair enough - as we know this before purchase. But it's still a niggle.

i run H2h on my intel mac, running XP sp2 under bootcamp - the machine is effectively a pc in this mode and not under emulation.

I find the servo servo sliders VERY, spongy and hit-n-miss, using either a mouse, track pad or arrow keys, there's no such thing as a single increment increase/decrease in values - i usually get an elastic sprint to maximum servo throw... and then some.

Catch and play is also very complex to set-up - which makes it a bit of a bind to create or tweak motions - before you know it either the battery is flat or you have to switch him off for fear of toasting a servo.

if there were a greater 'bank' or 'community' to share motion files this would be less problematic - as we'd have off the shelf moves to run or start tweaking from.

i also find that at home psotiton some of my servos tend to whine. My rn1 rarely had this issue and i've spend many a long hour trying to solve the issue - but had little luck.

i still prefer the 1HV to the RN1, because i like how he looks and the potential for more human like moves is always there - but having spent quite a few hours trying i don't seem to be getting any closer myself - in fact i've not created a single completely new motion.

so 1HV is definitely a labour of love in the long term.

in the short term it looks like i'll be looking at another bot - (RB1000/futaba RBT1) for a hit of more immediate robot fun.

[grasshopper]

hi,
I am new when it comes to Robots, I am considering purchasing the KHR-1HV. Based on the reviews I see this robot has more features that the Robonova 1. However my question is:
1. How easy is to assemble the kit since the instructions are in Japanese
2. How easy is to program it. I have prior programing experience, but its been a while since I have done anything.
Any feed back is much appreciated.

[grasshopper]

I apologize if this is not the right forum but as I stated I am eager to buy the Kondo KHR-1HV however I don't know if the kit comes with remote controller. Can anyone please provide any feedback and if no controller is in the kit what do I need to get to get the robot use a remote controller


Regards,

[zaboomafuu]

the 1 hv dosent come with any kind of radio control its controler board comes with a usb to rs232 cable that you can control by wire and send all you motions to the bot wtih. I am in the same boat my bot is in the mail as we speak it should be here in the next few days with any luck

[wintermute]

Question: Could one replace the 1HV's cheesy plastic servo brackets with the KHR-1's sturdy aluminum brackets? I searched the forum for an answer but didn't turn up anything. In my opinion, the plastic brackets suck serious swampwater -- no offense to the plastic fans.

[Robo1]

HI there.

Yes you can replace the plastic brackets with the KHR-1 metal brackets. I have just finished doing this with my KHR-2 and it make the world of difference. You will also have to get plastic servo horns and the freehorns as well and don't forget 100x M2 screws.

Bren

[wintermute]

Thanks, Bren, that's great news. Do you notice less of the backlash PaulP mentioned, since the brackets are more rigid?

[Robo1]

I've put it back together but haven't got it working again. But I will hopefully have it up and running in a couple of weeks so will up date.

Bren

[Ray]

Hi,

Here is my KHR2HV with Chest Kit,



The aluminum plate looks good, but because less of elasticity,
the shoulder will easily deform when there is a side fall



By the way, Kondo has another simple rotation kit for the leg,
Just one servo enough to rotate the leg:

see the movie
http://www.robospot.jp/cgi-bin/diarypro/diary.cgi

[wintermute]

Very cool, Ray. That settles it, I'm going to use aluminum brackets to build my 1HV.

That one-servo leg-rotation system you linked to is very clever, even though it doesn't rotate the legs independently, right?

[Ray]

ya!

anyway, it enough for general movement

[grasshopper]

Hi,
I am very excited, I just orderthe KHR-1HV through Robosavvy, however the sales rep told me to make sure to power each servor individually before powering up the whole Robot. The least I want to do is to break or damage everything, can you please tell me what are the steps needed for me to get the Robot in operational status. I also hear that is needed to zero the servors, can someone please explain this process. I apologize if this has been answered before.. Any feed back is much appreciated

[Ray]

Hi,

sales rep told me to make sure to power each servor individually before powering up the whole Robot

he may want you to check sure that each servo function well before assembling.


Since all the motion file provided the manufacturer is relative to a "standup" pose, all people in the world can use the same motion files provided, once you have "calibrated" the robot.

just like a ruler you should mark a zero point before telling people which location is 1 inch , 2 inch, .....

[zaboomafuu]

yeah he just wants to make shure all the servos are at there home position b4 you put the horns on and in all the brackets just to power it up and se the robot curl up in to a ball. just to take it all apart again. we do that alot in rc cars I had one guy for get to do that and ended up smoking a 114.99$ servo becouse it peged to one side and kept pulling.