KHR3-HV Options

[ks_khr3]

Hi everyone. I just finished putting together my KHR3. Great father's day gift from my family. I have a extensive Lego NXT experience but this is a whole different ball game. I am very excited and energized.

As we are temporarily based in Japan my wife bought the set from IXS. I will write to them or call them tomorrow to order some extras. I would like to ask a few questions here and see if anyone can throw a few hints my way.

My long term hope (goal / wishful thinking) is to run the KHR3 autonomously with soccer playing type of capabilities. I would like to get the remote control I saw in this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch_-5MSimb8

What do I need to do the things in this video? Obviously the remote kit which I think is KRC-3AD. How about gyros & accelerometers? Do you need them in for basic bipedal motion manipulated through the remote? If so which ones & how many?

I saw a reference to something called a RM_board2, a Linux controller on the Kondo page. Anyone have any experience with this? If not this one are there other controllers recommended for autonomous implementation?

By the way I 0'ed all servos before installation and after installation I was able to verify startup postion is fine. After a very small amount of moving arms & legs around my red #2 in the arm seized. Servo still turns when you turn it by hand but its noticeably harder to turn. It does not respond to commands sent from PC and heats up. I will ask IXS for a replacement tomorrow but have no idea what their warranty policy is. This is not fun.

Oh well, I have so many more questions but for now let me leave it here. I am afraid of coming in here and rubbing all the wrong way with all my questions. Thanks in advance for all your help & sympathy!

All the best. Happy father's day to those of you who are as blessed as I am.

KS

[ks_khr3]

Just read a little about RoboArd. Sounds like it completely replaces the Kondo controller and talks direct to the servos. Japanese language issue goes away like this right? What about the sensors? Do I still need Kondo sensors if I go with RoboArd or are there dedicated sensors for Roboard? Last but not least how about the remote?

Thanks so much!!!

[ks_khr3]

Called IXS and spoke with Yamasaki-san. He says I must have forced the servo beyond its travel range or weight limit. I realize its my word against their experience but this is very frustrating. I read of many other servo damages on this forum. What is the consensus? I can't keep buying new servos? Now both my #6s stopped responding and I have not even done anything yet. What should I do?

[Meltdown]

I'm sorry you experience such difficulties.
Going into robotics can be daunting.
But don't give up.
It's a leaning experience you'll have to go trough really.

Just remember that some soccer moves will put the standard KHR-3 servos well beyond their capabilities.
The robots in most soccer video's use 30+ kg/cm servos and even these get damaged as well!

Don't buy new servos but learn how to repair them.
If the gears are stripped just replace the gears.
If the servo is electronically damaged replace the motor driver chips (2pcs) of the damaged servo.

When going into robotics it helps a lot to have some soldering skills.
I think it's is essential really and part of the hobby.
I've replaced the servo motor driver chips several times myself because these are the ones who burn out when overtaxed.
Also check if all joints are running free without any binding.
Binding is servo killer number 1.

[limor]

Roboard 110 can replace the RCB controler board that comes with the KHR.
It runs linux and it can communicate with the KHR's servo
RM_Board has similar functionality and is definitely an interesting option if you are in proximity to IXS.

[ks_khr3]

Meltdown, Limor, many thanks for your help & strong encouragement. I will be visiting IXS today to meet them and work with one of their engineers to sort out my problem. They would like to look at my robot as-is to see how & why the servos might have been damaged. Chances are I will have to buy some new ones to get going and then repair the "fallen" to keep as my spares.

I am not new to servos and how they operate. Built & flew RC aircraft for many years where similar issues exist. If you work a servo beyond its design threshold or it doesn't have free travel trough all its range it will heat up which might lead to problems. I've never had them fail so quickly and unexpectedly though. My robot didn't even get to walk let alone play soccer etc. Anyways, enough of me whinging about my ser'woes'

I'm happy with a soldering iron. I build guitar amps using valve technology supporting my other hobby. I need to get a finer tipped lighter watt soldering iron though. The type of soldering I tend to do on a typical point to point amp is much heavier handed compared to what you see in the servo. Likewise no problems changing gears etc. I've done this type of work so I can do it again.

Limor I'm interested in your comment re Roboard and proximity to IXS. Why is that a benefit for Roboard? Can you kindly expand? I would like to make sure I understand this point very well.

I spoke to IXS about boards and they don't recommend RM-2 saying its really for university researchers who can speak Japanese. No English documentation etc. They are interested in talking about a new product that is making its entry which is the new KCB-3WL. http://kondo-robot.com/product/board.html

I think I will take my time with this one and first stabilize the KHR3 meachnically and use it with its basic capabilities for a while and read up all I can on the topic of addon boards and control.

One option I also want to consider is the Lego NXT. I have 2 sets at home already and have the mindsensors servo control extension. Using this I can drive regular servos with the NXT brick. If I could find a servo that matches the physical dimensions of the KHR3 servos then hypotetically I could run the whole thing using the NXT brain. Why would I want to do that? The number of sensors available for NXT and their prices compared to the Kondo range is just amazing! The decision maker for me I think will be the sensors that can be readily bought for any given board.

More time to read & digest. Thanks for all your help. Hanging in there.

[Meltdown]

I'm happy with a soldering iron. I build guitar amps using valve technology supporting my other hobby

Ah now where talking
I'm a pro guitar player, have been for 35 years.
Played all tube amps in the known universe by now,lol
But that's another story.

Plug mode on.
Visit my bandpage for those interested.
http://www.tachyonmusic.com/
Plug/ mode off.

[ks_khr3]

I'm happy with a soldering iron. I build guitar amps using valve technology supporting my other hobby

Ah now where talking
I'm a pro guitar player, have been for 35 years.
Played all tube amps in the known universe by now,lol
But that's another story.

Plug mode on.
Visit my bandpage for those interested.
http://www.tachyonmusic.com/
Plug/ mode off.

Great music! Love it.

Plug mode on
Feel free to drop in at a forum I co-host/moderate - Its called Future Guitar Now! http://www.futureguitarnow.com/forum/in ... tion=forum . I think you might like the company there. Lots of folk interested in vguitar, robot guitar & synth guitar etc. I go by the name MCK there. Take care.
Plug mode off

[ks_khr3]

Back to regular programming. Visited IXS today. Yamasaki-san & his engineer Kuroda-san literally spent 5.5 hours with me!!! I can't say enough about their customer service and willingness to get a fallen roboteer on his feet. They were amazing!

Swapped 3 servos. Yamasaki-san accepted 2 as faulty from factory (hip x 2) and replaced the FOC. The shoulder (#2) was deemed my fault and I paid for a replacement on that one. It will be repaired at my cost and sent back to me so I will keep it as a spare. Overall I am very satisfied with how IXS handled this situation.

They installed the +5 DOF kit and verified all is fine and no servo is DOA. We ran out of time so I ended up bringing the 1 x gyro + 2 x accelerometer parts + the radio kit home. Installed all and verified radio is working. I am so delighted.

Now I need to learn how to calibrate the gyro/accelerometer and fine tune. I went with the proposed values in the Japanese language document but KHR3 falls over after certain moves.

Kuroda-san offered to help me over the phone / Skype etc so I am sure I'll be able to sort the balance issues out. I am over the moon and would like to formally & publicly thank IXS & Yamasaki-san for his strong support & professionalism.

Next is to explore IR + Ultrasound sensors. All the best.

[Nim___]

Hi all. I'm from New York City and recently vacationed in Tokyo. Amazing place. While bouncing around Akihabara I found a little shop called Tsukumo and bought a KHR-3HV. It went together very smoothly and the whole thing reminded me of adventures building hobby robots from junk parts as a teen in the 70's. So now I am taking the plunge and getting the 17-to-22-dof upgrade kit. Any words of wisdom or caution I should know about?

[ks_khr3]

Good luck with that upgrade. Generally straight forward. Make sure to 0 out your servos before installation and also check the servo ids and fix them if need be using the utility s/w.

I installed the hip servos using the plastic servo horns supplied with the kit but I'm finding that the load in that area is quite substantial and the plastic horns are a little sloppy. There is a replacement servo horn which comes in singles or packs of 10. Suggest you get that and install metal servo horns for the hips and while at it perhaps for the knees & ankles too.

Also suggest using something like Loctite threadlock compound. All the best & good luck.

[Nim___]

So I have just finished doing the 17-to-22 servo upgrade. Everything went well on the rebuild. I then loaded in the software from the Options CD that came with the upgrade kit and lo, to my surprise the demo project named HELLO_KHR3 does not seem to be any different from the original one! That is to say that there appears to be no extra motion programming included for the 5 new servos. When I put the bot thru its paces it appears as if the new servos remain free-floating. And as you can imagine this messes up a number of the moves. Q: am i doing something wrong -or- is the demo project just not designed for 22 servos as I suspect?

[ks_khr3]

Hi Nim, did you solve the problem? If not please post and I will write down some steps to get your issue resolved. All the best

[Nim___]

Thanks for the reply.

I am slowly making my way thru the perversely obscure software. The H2H manual is of limited help. But anyway I have come to believe that indeed most of the sample motions on the options disk do not include instructions for the new servos. This became evident as I learned how to use the software to open and examine the sample motions. I finally figured out how to interpret what I was looking at!

So from now on it's a matter of creating new motions from scratch. Not a big deal.

Hey, I think it would be a cool idea if we could upload our homegrown H2H projects here, keep a running library, and share them as they get developed. What do you think of that idea? Or is anyone already doing that?

[cpsergi]

wow sounds like some awesome customer service there

I also are having fun putting together a KHR-3HV at the moment, got all the basics together and now just need to add the gyro and accelerometers. But alas my japanese is non existant, anyone have any places I could look for information for adding these? Ive seen some awesome mech warrior KHR modifications but I wonder if anyone has made a gundam one yet?

Thank you all in advance!!