mr-c3024 controller board for Robonova WANTED !

[hugobiwan]

Hello from France !

After playing for a while with arduino, toys and our friends humanoid robots (wowee sapiens, isobot, robophilo, bioloid) i can now buy a robonova kit i found in France, but WITHOUT the controller board. I must take quickly my decision, but it is very difficult to find a mr-c3024 controller board here in France at a good price.

Anybody here in Robonova's friends would sell me a mr-c3024 controller board, even used but fully working ?

I could buy a young humanoid like a RQ Huno but i can't resist to the charm of the robonova and i really want to try some funny things with this legendary robot, especially to play with both neurosky brainwave gadget, and arduino.

If you have a used robonova with the controller at a good price, i am also interested in your offers.

Help me to discover this great robot.

Best regards from France.

@hugobiwan

[PaulL]

You don't necessarily have to use the MR-C3024 controller. You could use something like this: http://www.adafruit.com/products/1411 on an Arduino to control the robot, or you could use an STM32-based board, like a Maple Mini (kind of like an Arduino) with one of these http://www.adafruit.com/products/815 for a bit more processing power and capability (STM32 chips are very capable!). I've tested the PCA9685 chip (used on both of the Adafruit links) with a Maple Mini using Hitec servos (8498, 5498), and it works just fine for controlling servos.

Most of the cost in these small bipeds is in servos, so when you buy a robot, the servos are where most of the money goes. Controllers such as STM32-based boards are much more powerful than the older ATMEGA128 used on the stock Robonova controller.

The main benefit of the MR-C3024 is two fold: one is "capture and play" - it takes a fair amount of effort to read back servo positions (and Hitec servos stop doing PWM when you try to read position) - none of the solutions I've mentioned would allow you to read back those positions. The other benefit is in ease of use. The original Robonova controller and software is easy to use compared to programming a general purpose controller. At the same time, there are drawbacks with the stock controller and software - you will be more limited in what you can do.

You should also be aware, the Robonova was discontinued a while back, which means that it is difficult to get replacement parts - servos, etc.

If you are comfortable with programming, you can do position changes over time to coax motion out of the servos using a PCA9685 board that provides hardware PWM along with (I'd suggest) a Maple Mini (info at http://www.leaflabs.com, can buy from http://www.sparkfun.com).

If you are a more skilled programmer, you can try your hand at a Roboard (available here at Robosavvy).

[hugobiwan]

First, i must thank you a lot for your precise and very useful response, with excellent links.

In fact i am now in a situation where i want to use the "catch and play" feature with people. So i my particular case (away from my lab, eager to use an humanoid here in Paris), i finally decide two actions :

- I buy a RQ Huno in order to discover and test the Robobuilder actuators protocol and quickly make some demos with a neurosky device, using catch and play.

- I buy also many little 9g servos because i shall soon get a reprap that will make me able to design a little humanoid based on mini servo brackets i found here : http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:38159. Then, your informations will be very useful to choose the brain of the boy. I'll do that with more time.

I thank you again a lot and think i am going to try the adafruit shield with and arduino for the prototype.

Best regards,

@hugobiwan