Should I make the jump???

[KurtE]

I am currently experimenting with the RoboNova-1 and I am having fun with it, but I am considering purchasing the Bioloid.

One of the main reasons that I am considering this system is for the ability to program it in C. Have any of you tried this yet? If so did they provide you with enough sample source code to make it easy to interface to all of the current components?

Also awhile ago I looked at some of their documentation and it looked like they had most of the pins of the AVR chip on some of the expansion plugs. Are these pins easily accessible? Has anyone tried to hook up JTAG to this?

So what do you all think of this kit? Should I wait a while to allow the bugs to be worked out?

Thanks

[barbar]

KurtE

Go4it and jump! As an experienced Robonova-customizer and C-Man (I've read a few of your posts) ... you simply can't let us do the whole lot of alpha- and beta-testing alone

I hope your other questions can be answered by Non-Newbees ...

Ah yes ...C example code: One small piece of code is provided on CD ... want me to upload it? (I Dont think the forum authorities will beat me ...)

[KurtE]

Yes, it would be interesting to see the sample code.

Thanks
Kurt

[barbar]

Here the example http://robosavvy.com/Builders/barbar/Example.zip

and the explanation http://robosavvy.com/Builders/barbar/Explanation.zip

Hope the download works

byebye
barbar

[barbar]

Has anyone tried to hook up JTAG to this?

These guys did - but with this board

http://robosavvy.com/Builders/barbar/BT ... OBoard.pdf

Of course its NOT the one in the CM-5 (but as you see its a TTL Board and obviously they connect AX-12 to the thing).

[KurtE]

Has anyone tried to hook up JTAG to this?

These guys did - but with this board

http://robosavvy.com/Builders/barbar/BT ... OBoard.pdf

Of course its NOT the one in the CM-5 (but as you see its a TTL Board and obviously they connect AX-12 to the thing).

Thanks for the information. Earlier I thought I saw a RobotIs document that showed a controller with connections for most of the signals of the AVR processor exported. However the pictures I saw posted here form the CM-5 looks very restricted. So I wonder if they or someone else is coming out with a compatible board that is more expandable?

[inaki]

KurtE, you are probably talking about CM3 board. The CM3 was used in robots that managed the top of the line DX servos through a CAN/RS485 bus. Not much to do with AX servos. Actually the CM3 is huge for an autonomous robot.

I don't see probable that a new board with I/O expansion be made by Robotis in short term. If you want expandability you have the option of working with the serial TTL interface or even the normal serial port. Other than this I think the only solution is making your own board. I am working on this line too.

[KurtE]

KurtE, you are probably talking about CM3 board. The CM3 was used in robots that managed the top of the line DX servos through a CAN/RS485 bus. Not much to do with AX servos. Actually the CM3 is huge for an autonomous robot.

Yes, I think you are correct. Actually it was the CM-2 board. The manual for it is up at:

http://www.tribotix.com/pdf/Robotis/CM2%20Manual.pdf

I don't see probable that a new board with I/O expansion be made by Robotis in short term. If you want expandability you have the option of working with the serial TTL interface or even the normal serial port. Other than this I think the only solution is making your own board. I am working on this line too.

That is a shame. They look like they have a real neat system, but they did not leave any ability to easily add on other things such as external sensors or an LCD... I am still on the fence here. Let me know how your board progresses

[Dimitris]

Jumping back to the initial post here, I am in the same dilemma of the Bioloid over the RN-1, due to the C ability mainly. Despite the software bugs I this kit looks very promising, specially as more ppl start getting into it. So would it be a smart move to go for the bioloid? By the way, gyros and accelerometers can be added to the RN-1 & KHR-1, is this correct? How about equivalents to the bioloid?

[KurtE]

I am still on the fence here .

I assume that in the recent updates, Robotis did not change the CM-5 board to allow reasonable access to the other I/O pins?

Has anyone made any progress in building their own controller board or an expansion board that allows other devices to be added?

I would like to experiment with non humanoid forms, such as the puppy or something like Pev's hexoid, which looked like a lot of fun.

I am still trying to decide if the bioloid kit is my best choice as it is already has examples of many different forms, or to get something like the Lynxmotion Hex 3R kit and then later if I decide to try other formats I could use their servo erector set.

Any thoughts?

[Pev]

I am still on the fence here .

I assume that in the recent updates, Robotis did not change the CM-5 board to allow reasonable access to the other I/O pins?

Has anyone made any progress in building their own controller board or an expansion board that allows other devices to be added?

I would like to experiment with non humanoid forms, such as the puppy or something like Pev's hexoid, which looked like a lot of fun.

I am still trying to decide if the bioloid kit is my best choice as it is already has examples of many different forms, or to get something like the Lynxmotion Hex 3R kit and then later if I decide to try other formats I could use their servo erector set.

Any thoughts?

KurtE,

I think things are pretty much as they were. I am unaware of anyone having developed their own board, or any additional add on modules. We have managed to interface to the serial ZigBee (Zig100) port (and hooked up a bluetooth module).

The programming interface (BCP) is still the same graphical interface which is useable but somewhat frustrating if you are used to writing 'proper' code but it does all work.

I still believe that the Bioloid is a great education/entertainment kit but it is not the easiest thing in the world to hack. (Especially if you're electronically challenged as I am). I have certainly hacked my RN-1 to a greater extent. Having said that I am no C programmer so cannot pass comment on the Bioloid C development capabilities (which there obviously are as they provide samples)

All this said I am not putting the Bioloid kit down, I love mine and spend at least as much time working on it as I do with my RN-1 and other homebrew 'bots. I am just not sure it will give you the expansion capabilities I think you are looking for.

I'd still like to see Robotis release an interface module for the kit that exposed say 4 AD ports, 4 digital lines and maybe an I2C port in the Dynamixel case. Oh well here's hoping......

Hope this is useful and it is just my opinion.......

Pev

PS one of my first bots 10 years ago was the Lynxmotion 12 servo Hexapod II, still got him and although he's old he still works fine

[pakkua80]

I have posted an example C code from Best Technology Japan. Take a look at it. I have translated all the comments.

http://forums.tribotix.info/forum1/36.html

[Juha]

I am still on the fence here .

Same here

I'm going through pretty much the same questions as you are.
http://robosavvy.com/modules.php?name=F ... opic&t=559

I assume that in the recent updates, Robotis did not change the CM-5 board to allow reasonable access to the other I/O pins?

BTW, has anyone (of the existing bioloid owners perhaps?) given robotis feed back? Or are their people active on boards like this one?

I would not be supriced if they actually did something about this, to make the system more easily extendable.

Then again, they might want to keep it a bit closed lego-like system where you're supposed to use their building blocks, but I hope not.

They're quite open about the protocols etc.

[KurtE]

BTW, has anyone (of the existing bioloid owners perhaps?) given robotis feed back? Or are their people active on boards like this one?

I know that the member ROBOLUCY, who I believe works for robotis, was posting messages up here. I have not seen any posts from her lately.

I'm going through pretty much the same questions as you are.
http://robosavvy.com/modules.php?name=F ... opic&t=559

Yes, I saw your message after I posted the previous message. Sorry everyone, I will try to not duplicate all of the same questions.

All this said I am not putting the Bioloid kit down, I love mine and spend at least as much time working on it as I do with my RN-1 and other homebrew 'bots. I am just not sure it will give you the expansion capabilities I think you are looking for.

I'd still like to see Robotis release an interface module for the kit that exposed say 4 AD ports, 4 digital lines and maybe an I2C port in the Dynamixel case. Oh well here's hoping......

Yep, you hit the nail on the head. I do believe that I would have a lot of fun playing with this kit. I am also like you said somewhat electronically challanged and so designing a new board would be stretching my capabilities.

If Robotis would either modify this board to bring all or most of the I/O pins out to a connector like they have done in their CM-2 and CM-3 boards or provide an expansion module such as you described, I would buy it in a heartbeat. However my guess is we won't see this happen any time soon.

I may still decide to go for the bioloid and use the CM-5 board to control the servos and add on a second processor to control everything else...

[Pev]

Gentlemen (those of us Electronically challenged anyway)

I have just had a thought. All we would need is a simple processor that could do 2 things:

1. interface with Digital and Analogue sensors
2. support a serial interface of 57K

Now these things may seem irrelevent but when we hacked the CM-5 to add Bluetooth to it we used the Zig100 socket in the pcb which runs a serial connection at 57k.

This would mean we could interface the sensors to the sensor processor and send the sensor data to the CM-5 over the Zig100 port. The BCP program could be setup to check for incoming data and the packet data is a two byte format so it could be simply brooken down to Most Significant Byte = Sensor ID, Least Significant Byte = Sensor Data.

Anyway it is literally a thought I just had sitting hear so feel free to beat holes in it I am sure I have missed something??

Pev

Sorry this is all a bit off topic - apologises for Hijacking thread