Which is Bioloid's principal disadvantage?

[siempre.aprendiendo]

I love Bioloid (you only need to read my posts or my web), but "Nobody's perfect".

Which do you think that it is Bioloid's principal disadvantage?

[Bullit]

If few sensors is your beef, then that's about to change. The new cm-510 supports I believe 6 analog input ports. In the new bioloid premium kit there is also a balance sensor which sits on the dynamixel bus. The premium kit comes with 3 IR sensors, 1 is medium range, the other two are short range. I believe Robotis intends that one is in the chest for not running into other robots, then the two short range ones can be used on the hands or feet for proximity sensors. The new cm-510 uses the atmega256 which has twice the storage as the 128 so you get more motion pages.

[Khashi.E]

Hi
I love it too.
about programming bioloid, behavior is not bad but roboplus has better fonctions.
about its building freedom,hacking and installing acsessories, bioloid is best robot!

[siempre.aprendiendo]

If few sensors is your beef, then that's about to change. The new cm-510 supports I believe 6 analog input ports. In the new bioloid premium kit there is also a balance sensor which sits on the dynamixel bus. The premium kit comes with 3 IR sensors, 1 is medium range, the other two are short range. I believe Robotis intends that one is in the chest for not running into other robots, then the two short range ones can be used on the hands or feet for proximity sensors. The new cm-510 uses the atmega256 which has twice the storage as the 128 so you get more motion pages.

Thanks, Bullit. I have been reading the info about the new premium and upgrade kit, but I would like to know your opinion.

In my opinion the two more important disadvantage are
- that until now there were very few sensors, only the AX-S1
- the structure parts limited too much the construction

[siempre.aprendiendo]

Hi
I love it too.
about programming bioloid, behavior is not bad but roboplus has better fonctions.
about its building freedom,hacking and installing acsessories, bioloid is best robot!

I agree, IMHO Bioloid it's now the best option to construct any legged creation and some interesting wheeled creations, but Mindstorms offers more and best wheels and mechanical parts

[Bullit]

Recently when attending the Korean Robot Festival I saw some really impressive humanoid robots that used ax-12's. Its amazing what performance is possible with them. The robots were however of a new custom design with very light weight components, likely much lighter then the bioloid plastic. The also used a custom controller and software to give them this capability.

The bioloid kit like legos gives you the ability to reconfigure and test various options. Lego clearly has an advantage there. It is however difficult to build a lego robot that is rugged enough to complete any real task or a real humanoid. The bioloid kit however is fairly rugged. Lego has a few sensors but the really great sensors for Lego have to be purchased elsewhere. Lego I believe uses I2C for all of its sensors. The bioloid, prior to the premium kit only has the ax-21. The new cm-510 allows 6 analog sensors and offers support for ax-21 and the new balance sensor. For me it seems that the Lego mindstorms for the most part stops at the bricks, its somewhat difficult to add custom parts. The bioloid once you've tried all the stock configurations screams rebuild me with custom parts and software. One great thing about robotics is the opportunity to learn so many disciplines.

[siempre.aprendiendo]

One great thing about robotics is the opportunity to learn so many disciplines.

I fully agree. For example, before I have never been very interested in mechanics, now I like to watch carefully every construction or maintenance equipment I meet.

Or "animal locomotions", I never thought about how complex is to walk! Though ants has been almost ever an amazing creature to me.

Apart from software and electronics, of course

[tom_chang79]

Maybe I'm one of the few, but frankly, I found those little nuts you push into the body of the actuators/sensors (AX modules) a PAIN IN THE BUTT to put in... I discovered the video AFTER I've already built it 90% of the way and even if the nuts were pushed in correctly, the soft platic ears where the nuts seats often stripped out!!!

Robotis definitely could've improved it...

Another bad design, was the way the CM-5 module screws on with the use of stickers/adhesive to hold the nuts in place! That has "terrible design" written all over it...

But those are the negatives, the positives FAR OUTWEIGH the negatives.

Some positives:

1) BCP and Motion Editor is one of the easiest to use out there

2) TORQUE KING of all the kits out there within this price range, and speaking of....

3) Price, BEST for its class

4) The way the 2DOFs mount at the hip and the ankle... Kondos are nice but they really should've figured out how to do it like Robotis does it to keep the height down (lower CG, shorter pendulum stick)

5) AX modules are more then analog sensors and servos, they have a full digi interface (which saves you the trouble of A/D. The Actuators are just awesome for its price

6) Daisy-Chained wires - No more routing 18 sets of servo wires (I hate cable management, it's a pain in the butt to do)

7) Highly Configurable - You don't have to do the humanoid with it. There are so many other creative uses for the Bioloid....

----

One more negative though:

-1) Non metal gear in the AX-12+, still uses Nylon... I've heard cost issues but even Hitec's low-end H645MG has metal gear and dual ball bearings at < $25 (when on sale at hobby shops)..

-2) Plastic Bushing instead of bearings for the joints... Again, bearings are CHEAP. You don't need high-precision Japanese, Swiss, German, or American bearings. You can just put in Chinese bearings in the kit (costs about less then $0.05 (nickel) each at high volumes.

I'm in the process of replacing all the plastic bushing with some flanged bearings because I just hate those bushings... I've dealt with enough of those on RC cars to know that they end in spectacular failure due to a huge slop when it wears...

That's it, other then that, I've got a pretty cool humanoid for less then $900... That's a deal!!!!

[Philosobot]

Hey I have a Bioloid Beginner kit and I need some tips on getting the nuts in the little slots in the AX-12's. I normaly get them in there eventually by putting them on top of the slot, than take a a small paper tac, insert it into the bottom of the nut and than prise it down into the slot. I need to know if it's this hard for everyone or if there some secret technique I don't know about lol.




Thanks,
Phil.

[tom_chang79]

There's a really good tutorial on how to do this (I discovered it at about 90% into the build ).

Go to:

C:\Program Files (x86)\ROBOTIS\BIOLOID\Help

You'll see a video in there titled "Inserting Nuts for the AX-12"

[botmen]

what is the basic difference between the comprehensive and premium kit.

[Khashi.E]

what is the basic difference between the comprehensive and premium kit.

The Bioloid Premium Kit is a bit different from the normal Bioloid.
The Beginner and Comprehensive are capable of being built into different robot figures with the help of the manual,
but the Premium contains only assembly information for the humanoid
it has cm-510 which programmed with a new software that namedRoboplus

here's a list of bioloid kit's parts:

for more info click here

bests,
Khashi.E