noob cant decide: kondo khr3 vs bioloid premium?

[romeo26]

Hello I am new to the robot community and I wanted to get one. What I am looking for is a biped that can walk turn at the waist, bend at the waist. Easy to modify, good quality servos, not too tough of a learning curve, the ability to rc.

I just want to ability to for easy programming.

I was thinking of the kondo khr3 or the bioloid premium.

The goods;
Kondo:
Looks like a quality kit
Metal construction
Easy to mod
Can go from 17-22 dof stock
Ability to rc

Bioloid premium
Also looks like a quality kit
Servo’s look more robust
Comes with everything needed
English
Can be different bots


The bads:
Kondo:
Japanese
Don’t know about the servo’s
Product support
Bad boards (read that they fry easily)

Bioloid premium
Plastic construction
Doesn’t look as flexable


I just want something to tinker with. What do you guys think?

[chrisvo]

I am one of the people who reported an exploded 3HV board, but I do not know the root cause. I wouldn't say "they fry easily" yet until we figure out what caused it in the first place.

Pros for Bioloid:
In general the support community behind Bioloid is larger and better, and all the documentation is in English. I'm acquainted with one of the guys involved in designing the Bioloid, very nice guy. Bioloid is also flexible in terms of being able to build things other than humanoids.

Pros for Kondo:
You get more for your money. The servos from Kondo 3HV kit are fully metal gear. The Bioloid premium kit uses Dynamixel AX series servos which are all plastic. The 3HV is also taller and sleeker, more serious looking than the Bioloid - the Bioloid tends to be chunkier looking like a toy. This particular point can help if you want to mod your 3HV eventually - in Japan there are a lot of people modding the 3HV. It's a lot easier to put armor or costume on the trimmer 3HV body. The build quality of the 3HV parts is also optimum Japanese quality - very precise, no rough edges, includes surplus screws in case you lose or strip any. Build quality of Bioloid is pretty good too, but more plastic.

I am trying to build an autonomous humanoid robot, and chose the 3HV over the Bioloid mainly for price and the metal construction.

EDIT: At least, it was expensive at the time. I think the Bioloid kit is a lot cheaper now. I'd still myself stick to the 3HV because of metal geared servos (metal gears and shaft really make a huge difference - I've built many humanoid kits in the past and nothing compares)

[UncleBob]

I am a Bioloid Premium owner. After owning the Bioloid Premium for 3 months I must say I will still make the same decision now. That's not to say the KHR3 is not as good. I am simply looking at it from an affordability and value for money perspective.

The KHR3 is a lot more expensive compare to the Bioloid Premium. However you still need to buy an expensive remote on top. Bioloid already comes with everything you can ever need to upgrade or to modify the robot. There are many spare parts and cables for me to upgrade mine for competition. Zigbee, sensors, remote control, infra red, gyros are in the box. You also don't get as many sensors and you need to buy the gyro for the kondo if I remember correctly. If you buy all these that will be 2x price of the Bioloid Premium. I think it is way too expensive.

I must admit the KHR3 is a more classy robot, it can walk faster and better built quality. I admire the KHR3 very much. But for that price I don't think it is worth the money.

One other reason I don't like Kondo is because I find it uncustomer friendly to non Japanese. To me I feel they don't seem to care about the non Japanese market. They don't write English manuals and software. I don't think it will cost them a lot if they are real serious about it. Maybe they just want to keep the best technology to themselves. I tried to buy a KHR2 from robosavvy before. They didn't deliver the robot over 2 weeks. I don't know whether it is Robosavvy or Kondo's fault. But if this is Robotis I am sure they would have done something about it.

Finally I believe the KHR3 is harder to setup. You have to carefully align the servos etc but with Bioloid it is straight forward.

Conclusion.
If price on both are equal then I get the KHR3 and accept the bad customer services and harder setup. Simply because it is a better quality product.

But at this price tag, no way I will get it.

[FabinovX]

I'm a premium owner and this is my first robot ever. I'm really happy with it.
The Kondo is really a great machine but there is no way to found an english documentation and it really seems harder to tune and program when you're novice.
On the other side, the bioloid is not perfect but more affordable and really easy to program.
AX12 feedback datas are really noisy, and are really hard to filter due to timing limitations.
That's sure the Kondo servo are better and parts stiffness is really greater.
The plastic parts of the Bioloid are really resistants but they are really flexible what can lead to more difficulties when programming motions.

the two are really good to my eyes but the premium is a better choice for beginner i think.
I hope it will help you

[Bullit]

Bishop a KHR-3 just won the light weight gold at Robogames 2010
It was very stable and performed well.