Which robot do I want?

[MCHAMMOND]

Basicaly im new to this robot biusness although ive been intrested in it for a long while, i didnt know that such advanced and functional robots where availible to the public until whatching the gadget show on 5 UK the other day and boy was i impressed 8O

Ive been looking for a new hobby for a the last few weeks after getting my new laptop and chukking my old rig cuz i have forbeden myself from opening it up and "improving" it. so i havnt anything to do when i get home from work now cus this computer just WORKS

anyways ive dicided robots cuz there cool and it sounds cleaver when you say Q"what do you do" A"i make robots " like rocket scentist or somthing.

the three kits that seem to be good to me from shoping around are the:
Bioloid Comprehensive kit
KHR-2HV Kit
ROBONOVA-1 Kit
are there anymore i should know off?

price whise they all seem to be about £600 is that right is there anything else i need to buy ie batterys not inclueded LOL VAT?

my qestion is which is best for me?
my work involves 3d modeling and some charicter animation so from what i can see the bioloids GUI would suit me as im only a very basic programing skills do the other robots have a 3d frame by frame GUI
linking it to my new laptop whould be a must and i would also like for good exspansion for the futuer like adding hands and swords i would prefear a robot that had a more rugged construction so i could screw things on it and add camreas and sensors and stuff

basicaly which one would siut my needs best?

thakyou for you advice

Max Hammond

[limor]

Hi Max, welcome to the forum!

Battery and VAT: All 3 robots come with a rechargeable battery and the prices on RoboSavvy's store include VAT.

GUI: All three robots have a GUI based interface that requires little knowledge of programming. KHR-2HV has no programming language, only GUI.

Linking to Laptop: All 3 do via serial port. so for your new laptop you may have to get a serial-to-USB adapter (10GBP on Ebay).

Hands and swords: RN1 is aluminum based and you will find most of these types of custom add-ons coming from the RN1 crowd.

Rugged construction: They are all rugged. Bioloid is more powerful and also a bit heavier.

Adding sensors and stuff: RN1 has many supported sensors but requires programming. KHR-2HV also has several vendor supported sensors. Bioloid has sensor blocks called AX-S1 which includes several embedded sensors. (store link)

There is no single "best". Each one is unique and a the outcome of years of careful planning of the smallest details.

[Joe]

There is no single "best". Each one is unique and a the outcome of years of careful planning of the smallest details.

Rubbish! There is only One True Way.

Seriously though, I'm also a newbie, and have been asking for a lot of advice, and almost always get these carefully balanced it's-all-good type answers, which I found rather aggravating. I'd rather people took a stand; I'm quite capable of deciding which stands make the most sense to me.

So, in that spirit, I'll take one:

The Kondo and Hitec robots are actually the outcome of years of being entrenched in the R/C (radio-controlled) vehicle market. Those servos have a certain form factor (e.g. an output shaft on only one side) and feature set (e.g. limited rotational range, one-way communication) that made sense for that market, but make no sense whatsoever for use in robotics. These old servo manufacturers are ever-so-slowly being dragged into the 21st century when it comes to robotics, but their products are still square pegs in round holes — an awkward fit at best.

Robotis, on the other hand, was founded as a robotics company, and their servos were designed as robot servos right from the get-go. They have just about everything you'd want for use in a robot: they're daisy-chainable, speak a simple serial protocol, provide lots of feedback on what's going on inside the servo, they can do both continuous rotation (think wheels) as well as position control over 300 degrees, etc.

If you were going to start from scratch and design a servo for robotics, I hold that you'd come up with something very much like the Bioloid (Robotis) servos and not at all like the Hitec or Kondo servos. I also predict that, within a few years, Hitec and Kondo will either get with the program or (dare I say it?) get squeezed out of the robotics market. It's much like the early days of personal computers — you can get away with a sucky product only as long as some young upstart doesn't come along and show people how it should be. That's just what Robotis has done.

Oh, and Bioloid is substantially cheaper for the power too. A 16 kg-cm AX-12 servo (plus a couple of brackets!) is $45. The closest Hitec equivalent is about $115 — despite lacking all those cool features you want in a robot servo. (Not sure about Kondo prices, as they're hard to find in the U.S.) The kits you mention are comparable in price only because the Hitec (and to lesser extent, the Kondo) models are using servos just barely strong enough for the job.

So, my advice is, go with Bioloid. It's a better product and a better value. So there!

Cheers,
- Joe

P.S. Those whose views differ, please don't start a flame war — but feel free to post your own perspectives!

[JonHylands]

I agree with Joe - never mind the fact that the Bioloid servos are stronger and can be daisy chained and such - for me, the critical fact that made up my mind is that they are not only actuators, they are also sensors.

Each actuator can be queried for internal temperature, current position, current rotation speed, and the amount of torque being applied to the actuator from the outside world.

That is powerful stuff. Its not as useful if you're trying to build an entertainment robot that does a few pre-canned routines via remote control. However, if you're trying to build a smart autonomous bipedal robot, that stuff is a whole bunch of steps in the right direction.

- Jon

[Ghostrider]

Rubbish! There are as many True Ways as there are people.