mac questions...

[plingboot]

i'm thinking about adding a bioloid to my collection over christmas and wondered:

1. whether anyone uses one with a mac - and can offer some experience?
2. is there a community for sharing motion files?
3. what are the downsides to bioloid ownership?

[siempre.aprendiendo]

i'm thinking about adding a bioloid to my collection over christmas and wondered:

1. whether anyone uses one with a mac - and can offer some experience?
2. is there a community for sharing motion files?
3. what are the downsides to bioloid ownership?

1- I'm afraid that there isn't Mac software for Bioloid.

You can download the new CD from here
And the previous version from here

2.- I think that there isn't a community for sharing motion files. But we can start it here

3.- I think that is Bioloid is a very good product. It's complex but powerful.
My main concerns are about little low level documentation, specially to programming it with C, but it seems that a new solution is coming ...

(Excuse my poor English...)

[Rob]

I am a newbie but this is what I've worked out so far.

1. As for Mac read this thread http://robosavvy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10270. You nee to get one of Jon Hylands boards and write your own software. I haven't gotten to this stage yet.

2. It would be great if people would start sharing Bioloid monion files there is a wiki site we could add them too with Jon's go ahead http://www.bioloid.info/tiki/tiki-index.php

3. The best feature about the bioloid for me is I can replace the CM5 with another board\computer (gumstix) and then program in any language I like (depending on the OS) i.e. C#, Java etc. If you're not interesting in programming you bot then maybe look at another robot (but that's just my opinion).

Siempre what's this new solution you're talking about???

[Kess]

My main concerns are about little low level documentation, specially to programming it with C

Have you looked at the Bioloid Expert manual? There is a lot of stuff about C programming in there. As far as I'm aware the libCM-5 libraries are not available to us non-Expert owners, but fortunately many of the core routines can be found in the example.c file that is available.

[siempre.aprendiendo]

My main concerns are about little low level documentation, specially to programming it with C

Have you looked at the Bioloid Expert manual? There is a lot of stuff about C programming in there. As far as I'm aware the libCM-5 libraries are not available to us non-Expert owners, but fortunately many of the core routines can be found in the example.c file that is available.

There is no Robotis documentation about AX-S1 IR communications, about charging, about Bioloid_Ver115.hex functions, etc.

[kennethw]

...You need to get one of Jon Hylands boards and write your own software. I haven't gotten to this stage yet.

You can use screen in Terminal for direct control over serial. This command will start a session, which does everything Robot Terminal can do, including on-board motion page editing. The "e" turns on echo:

screen port 57600 e

There is now a .hex compiler/decompiler, so an app could be produced which writes them. I'm toying with the notion of getting Flash communicating with a serial port so I can build some online (not internet-online) GUI stuff there.

http://www.bioloid.info/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Bioloid+compiler%2Fdecompiler

[kennethw]

Sweet! I made a lot of progress today, and will be gathering notes on Mac access to Bioloid as soon as I can. Here's the short version:

- I have R Kym Horsell's decompiler built for OS X, but not the compiler (yet).

- There's an OS X flavor of the "WinAVR" toolchain, called OSX-AVR, required for building .hex files for the atmels from C. I have been able to build the Robotis Example.c in XCode.

I have been able to load files onto the CM-5 with screen in Terminal, but the Mac-generated Example.hex has a different file size (the checksum is not right), presumably due to a rsrc or some other Mac voodoo. The Example.c output file built from XCode loads onto the CM-5 with Robot Terminal and works perfectly, so the build is good...

[limor]

To those who are curious about Bioloid and want to get a feel of the kit before spending the money here are a couple of cheap intro suggestions.


1) get the Bioloid Beginners kit at around 200GBP. you can then upgrade it to a Comprehensive kit (humanoid).

2) get 1x CM5 + 1x AX-12 + 1x Serial Cable. At about 80GBP you can play with the Bioloid software, reprogram the CM5 and understand the principles of the Bioloid.

3) get the Arduino (POP168 or Diecimila because their voltage regulator will tolerate the same voltage as the servo) and 1x AX-12 servo and play around with the C libraries to control the servo. This is a bit cheaper than option 2 but you will not be able to use the standard Bioloid software. However, the Arduino has the advantage of having well documented software development environment and you can interface with sensors, something that can not be done with the CM5.

Robotis items can be found here:
http://robosavvy.com/store/index.php?ma ... rers_id=15
Arduino:
http://robosavvy.com/store/advanced_sea ... no&x=0&y=0