Home Brew

[Thex1138]

Hi Folks,
I am thinking of a project to design and fabricate my own biped robot.
It's more of a challenge and excercise in design...
I see a lot of people have done it before, I have roboard for controller.
I am looking to design and have fabricated the servo connectors for joints and body. Design them in CAD and have them fabricated, buy screws, wires etc,.

Any advice on which servos would be the best to use? Not too expensive though
maybe US$50 per servo is enough? The Trossen parts look good but they have all their own connectors anyway...
kondo servos look good but can be pricey for the tougher ones...
Any thoughts?

[Ausrobo]

Thex,
I have same plan. I started with the 3HV to learn how. It looks to me like the Roboboard is a great choice for controller.
I think the servo choice will be determined by the size of the bot. I was planning for around 1m which means I will need something around the Kondo 6003HV. Very expensive, so I think this will be a slow project. Also I will have to teach myself CAD, so I can some parts fabricated. It really sounds hard now!

[tempusmaster]

I have to agree with Ausrobo. The challenges of building a successful humanoid aren't trivial. The biggest issue is that you have to develop expertise in a number of different areas including mechanical design, statics, dynamics, electronics, programming, and a few others.

It's all possible. As you mentioned, others have done it. The top builders here all started with a basic kit then started to hack, modify, and replace major parts of it as they gained experience. Another good example is Matt Bauer. He went from a Robonova-1 kit to a full custom self-designed humanoid in about 18-24 months.

On the servo choice question, there are quite a few choices - Kondo, Futaba, and others from Korea, Taiwan, etc. Price is important, of course, but a biggest factor for me was selecting something that had a group of users I could ping for advice and guidance when I ran into problems. I went with Kondo because there is a wealth of information and big user community here in Japan - but it's almost all in the Japanese language...