Life-size robot with Kondo KRS-6003HV

[Dennis2010]

Hello,

I want to built a life-size robot with 1,80 m! For this plan I need want to use the Kondo KRS-6003HV servo motors.

The problem I see with these servos is the bad documentation from Kondo about it in English. So I hope that I can get some answer of my questions in this forum:

1. Does anyone know the driving and holding torque of this servo? All what I found was 67kg/cm! But is this the driving or holding torque.

2. It is possible to readout the position, current and temperature?
3. Is it possible to readout this information while the servo is running?
4. Can it be true to control these servos with a microcontroller like the atmega128? I know that PWM will not work because they use an ICS 3.0 protocol.
5. Can you tell me something about the ICS 3.0 protocol?
6. Are there some programming examples in BASCOM, Assembler or C++ for this servo?
7. Is the Kondosoftware available in English?
8. Do you have some English documentation about this servo?
9. First I wanted to buy the Robotis EX-106+ but then I saw the KRS-6003HV and thought it is a very good alternative because the EX-106+ are expensive and the Kondo have a real heatthink with an aluminium body. What do you think about it?
10. Are there some other problems with the KRS-6003HV?
11. Does the Kondo RCB-4 Board work with these servos too?
12. Can you talk with the RCB-4 Boar donly with the PC or is there any way to control this board with an other microcontroller?

If there isn't any answer perhaps it could help me if anyone can tell me something about the KHR-3HV. Can you readout there the position, emperature and the current? Because the KHR-3HV uses HV servos with ICS 3.0 too?!

Thanks a lot!

Dennis2010

[chrisvo]

Hi. It's tricky - most of the Kondo stuff is completely in Japanese, and they are not very open with source code, and provide the most minimal information about protocols, etc. You will have much more support if you go with the Robotis options. I do not speak Japanese myself, and I am a cheapskate, so I have spent many hours reverse engineering, etc on the KHR-3HV, RCB-4, and ICS protocols so I can use the less expensive Kondo stuff...

I can answer some of these:

2. Yes, this all three are in the ICS 3.0 serial protocol.
3. Yes, over the ICS 3.0 serial protocol.
4. Yes, it's simple UART control over a serial bus. The RCB-4 is just a Renesas microcontroller. We plan to use an ARM 7 controller later this year to control our humanoids.
5. The manual for the ICS 3.0 protocol is here:
http://kondo-robot.com/pdf/ICS30CommandRef.pdf
It's in Japanese - Google Translate is your friend. The protocol is extremely simple.
6. As far as I know, no. Somewhat related, I'm working on a small C library for the RCB-4 control board: https://bitbucket.org/vo/libkondo4/wiki/Home .
7. Not really. However, I have painstakingly created patches for the latest version of the Heart2Heart software bundled with the KHR-3HV: http://robosavvy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5931
8. There exists some English documentation for the construction of the KHR-3HV humanoid kit, and the RCB-4 control board, but currently, it is not publicly available. You must ask for it.
9. The Kondo serial servos are the best bang for buck. Strong and accurate. The main complaint about these servos is lack of support in English language...
11. Yes.
12. See (6) and (7) above for English code examples and software for controlling RCB-4.

[billyzelsnack]

What's the best price you've seen on that servo? From what I've seen it is more expensive than the RX-64 with similar performance.

[Dennis2010]

Hello,

My best price is 4600 $ for 16 servos. This servo is even better than the RX-64!

[billyzelsnack]

Why do you say it is better? Just wondering because Kondo info is difficult to come by compared to Robotis info.

[limor]

IMHO, Kondo does not believe in the Western market. We have been selling their stuff since 2004 and have not seen any serious move towards providing the adequate attention to the needs of Western hobbyists and researchers. Yes, they eventually translate the documentation but they do strange things like releasing an upgrade to KRC3AD called KRC2AD and KHR2HV followed by KHR1HV and discontinuing products overnight without notice etc. i recall a couple of years ago where there was a batch of bad servos that had the unfortunate tendency to catch fire. We complained to Kondo about 3-4 such cases and they refused to acknowledge the problem, saying that this never happened to Japanese customers, and therefore we had to replace these servos at our expense...
They tend to rely on the Japanese market and online community in Japan.

Their products are amazing though and hopefully now that the worldwide market has gone out of recession we will see more good things from them.

Their ICS3.0 daisy-chain servos, which follow the logical Korean solution for multi-actuated-dexterous-robots, only have Japanese documentation and little to no information about electrical requirements. these would be needed if, say, one is to design a board for communicating and powering the servo bus.

These servos could really become popular if they could be controled by a "normal" MCU like Atmel (A 10$ Arduino compatible for example) instead of a Renesas based board RCB4 that costs $180

ok, enough ranting..

[chrisvo]

My research group is definitely working on getting an ARM 7 MCU up and running as an RCB-4 replacement for our lab's humanoids. We have the requirement to control the servos more directly for our control algorithms in our research application. However, we're focused on the RoboCup competition in June so we're busy at the moment.

The ICS 3.0 manual gives you plenty for the protocol end in terms of packet format, but the voltages and other electrical requirements are still unknown. We've pretty much been relying on measurement to get that kind of information these days...

[Dennis2010]

Hello,

Please let me know about your MCU project as soon as you could.

If I can use it for my project too I will spend you 100 USD for this information.

Thanks!