Newbie RN-1 Questions

[Humanoido]

It looks like the new battery charger arrived. I'll pick it up tomorrow. I was busy. - installed a battery monitoring circuit that Fritzoid recommended, did a no-slip mod to the feet so they can better function on slick ceramic tile floors, and operated on the head (the IR sensor came off during an acrobatic session). Geeze, it wore me out.

What's next? Can anyone tell me if the gyro, accelerometer, speech, Bluetooth, or other add-ons are available from Hitec USA? I keep seeing these RN products available in the UK by Hitec.

[DirtyRoboto]

Glad to see that you gave your RN some sole

You may have noticed my RN on some of the videos has two black bands on the sole of the feet. These are adhesive neoprene pads that are cut to size and offer great grip (ala 'Jump into star pose' routine) with very little depth.
I also now have these neoprene grips on the insides and front faces of the hands. I wanted to reduce the force needed to gain friction on an object to be grabbed, and thus reduce the workload on the servos.

The sonar is a great little addon. It will open up a way for your bot to interact with its environment in a cheap and easy way.

Marcus.

[Humanoido]

Great idea to use Neoprene rubber pads. Excellent idea using it for feet and hands. Is this a 3M product? Hey, I knew you had the advantage in your many fine videos. It looks like you fine tuned your RN to perfection. Holy cow, it will take me light years to catch up to you, and by then, you'll be advanced to a different place in space & time!

Geeze, 16 servos and I'm already wishing I had more. I was moving RN today, without the power on, to see what positions he can do. Certain torso and arm movements are a challenge. To simulate a torso movement, RN must move the feet into a turning position and supplement the motion with an arm movement. There's no rotation on the arms - still working on how to do that one.

Forgot to mention, also did the mod to the cables. Several were rubbing on the metal brackets by the shoulders, arms, and legs. I used a Spiral Wrapping Band #KS-8 because it offered the best flexibility and protection and won't resist the servos. Geeze, maybe the charger should have take a few days longer to arrive. Who knows what more I could have accomplished!

I've got an average parts box with very few items, such as a sonar, CMUcam, speech synthesizers, speech recognition kit, and about 10 microcontroller boards. You think some of this stuff can go on RN?

Humanoido

[Humanoido]

The new charger arrived today, replacing the defective one. Returned the hip servos to their original positions on the controller. Charged up the batteries, set the zero point, and everything worked perfect! The mod for the low battery warning circuit worked perfect. Got the beeps and 3 flashes after about an hour of use. Working great! It's very impressive. Used the remocon to test all the functions. Very slick!

Sometimes, and not very often, RN falls over. That can be a front or back fall, and usually with a routine like the fast walk. I think its from slipping. It seems to slip on the glass-like ceramic tile floor, even after the foot mod. This time, I'll need to put on thin grip rubber on the feet as suggested by DirtyRoboto. The masking tape is not working.

I also notice RN slides around a lot on the floor during acrobatics. I had to laugh. He flopped over normally, during a tumble, and slid a good half-foot! He needs an exercise mat, or some grip rubber all over his body. The little devil.

Also loaded in Mech Puppeteer. Amazing program! I love it! Matt Bauer did a great job creating this software.

Now what should I do next?
Humanoido

[engineer]

hi, I think you should get the accelorometer on board first so rn can pick itself up when it falls over,because I've put the gyros in first and rn spends alot of time flopping as I'm trying to get it not to. and definitly check out trossen robotics, sorry limor.

[Humanoido]

The accelerometer sounds like a good idea. I plan to do most of the upgrades around the same time, when I can get most of the parts and modules from Hitec.

There's not many home pages dedicated to Robonova at this time. I wonder why? I did find two "getting started" tutorials. I'll read them tonight.

Humanoido

[engineer]

hi again, I loaded 1 1/2 oz lead in both rn's shoes which changed the cg and now it can get back up from falling on his face, I guess putting the gyro's in and adding a head servo between shoulders so I can ,soon,put a sonar sensor where the LED is,really changed rn's cg

[Humanoido]

There are some mods that won't change the center of gravity, such as wrapping the cables, adding the battery low circuit, changing software, making the feet less slippable, and adding some very lightweight sensors.

As you discovered, changing the COG can have some pleasing results, i.e. it can get up more easy from a front fall, as you mentioned. Do you find the walking more stable with the added foot weight? What other changes are noticeable?

Humanoido

[engineer]

I had the same problem with the charger that you did, every now and I use my millenium pro charger to fully charge the battery pack after a full discharge.the other changes that are most obvious are the pacing of the tumble, I have a weak servo 19 that I'm waiting to change out when the servo I ordered from my local hobby shop comes in.I've been having so much trouble getting the gyro output right that I've been letting my scheduled upgrades jump over themselves. I've got to get a hold of bauermech to find out why using gyrohelp download codes for gyro on, off just makes rn dance. Hope your having a good time trying to figure this stuff out too. luckily these forums give a lot of info. Hitech has given me super service, and limor is areally good guy. luck

[DirtyRoboto]

The gyro dance that you are getting is due to the position of the gyro on the shoulder.
It should really be mounted just above the waist, but this cannot be done in any easy way.

I am just about to start playing with the gyro, so I will get back to you if I sus' anything out.

[DirtyRoboto]

My gyro is working fine!

I used this code pasted before main...

'Gyro Setup
GYROSET G6A,0,1,1,1,0,0
GYROSET G6D,0,1,1,1,0,0

GYRODIR G6A,0,0,0,0,0,0
GYRODIR G6D,0,0,0,0,0,0

GYROSENSE G6A,0,250,200,250,0,0
GYROSENSE G6D,0,250,200,250,0,0


I then turned the gain and setup right down. Then I just moved gain and then setup until the robot was upright (dont worry about the green/red light). Its then just a matter of small adjustments to the gyro.

[engineer]

I didn't put the gyros on the shoulders I put them in the shoulders like pg. 9 of the thread. I soldered the leads straight to the gyro board,heaven help me if they fail, and used servo tape to keep them from moving around.the double thickness from the torso top makes it hard to get the head servo to work, but without a digital feedback servo the controller wouldn't know where (0 to 200) the servo was pointing. if you put a sonar sensor in RN-!'s face you definitly would want to use that information, so it could turn away from the obstacle (sp. spending way to much time on this board)I'm startinting to call servo horns hones ,apostrophes comments,and you guys are starting to make sense.the early chargers had a tendency to fall apart inside, mine went back real fast, luckily Hitec has a quick turnaround since I'm in northern california.Still working out the gyro codes.

[Humanoido]

So basically everyone is adding TWO gyros to RN?
Humanoido

[engineer]

yes, FB and RL.also a two axis accellorometer .I'm waiting for mine to arrive also an answer to my query about gyro on off codes I don't think they act right. Plus gyrohelp.bas is a lesson just to get into RN! coding and programing. I've gotten a lot out of this and the robot store forums.