Anyone have a fully functioning Hexy?

Hexy Questions, Problems and Suggestions
#10

I think it is impressive that you were able to find servos that worked at all in this price range- I was never able to figure out how to get any of my hexapod designs under that $6-700 price point. You were able to source carbon fiber gears at half the price. I don’t mind swapping in fresh gears every now and again when you’re able to get the supply chain worked out. I suppose we’ve figured out what Hexy’s “Achilles Heel” is now, right?

One thing to consider might be to up the spec for only the servos that take the most stress, leaving the rest at the more economical lower spec. I assume, for example, that the hip servos take less stress than those in the thigh. By swapping the thigh servos alone out for a metal geared replacement in the ~$10 range you might only increase the price of the kit ~$50 or so.

You’ve probably tried every possible servo under the sun at this point- would you be willing to share your experiences? What’s the “cadillac” servo for Hexy if price were not a consideration? And what is the absolute lowest end you would ever consider if price alone were the consideration?

john
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#11

Thinking about this further (coffee beginning to kick in…) why not design just the servo you want and have it manufactured to your spec? I don’t know how many Hexy kits there are in the wild now (are you over 1k kits sold yet? must be close to that at least by now…) but maybe there’s evidence of enough demand to interest a manufacturing partner in Asia. Failing that, maybe there’s another Kickstarter project out there… “a cheap but durable servo for building legged robots.”

edit: Come to think of it, why not simply source replacement gears that are metal? Maybe it is cheaper to field-upgrade failed servos?

john
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#12

The ‘cadallaic’ servos that a lot of high-end hexapod kits are the dynamixil series. Those start at $50/piece, though.

The reason we don’t get a custom servo manufactured is because even at 20k+ servos ordered, we’re still not anything close to the quantity where people would take us seriously enough to produce a comparable custom OEM servo.

We’re trying to find an appropriate metal gear servo that doesn’t trash the price, but that process is taking quite some time. In the mean time, it looks like replacement gears are a viable option. I just got word back from the servo manufacturer that I can get them cheap enough to sell 10 packs for $5 in the store.

#13

Mine is working fine, three servos broke, but ArcBotics has sent me replacements, now I’m waiting for servos to arrive.

I had issues with PoMoCo, but the new version is working fine. Also had troubles with powering Hexy, but I solved using proper batteries.

I’ve been building robots for two years now, always wheeled robots, so this project gave me a chance to try out legged robots :wink:

Overall, I’m extremely happy about my hexapod; considering the low price, it’s probably the best I could get :slight_smile:

#14

Wow, there’s been a lot of activity during my absence!

Good to see improvements of Servotor32 + PoMoCo - I got mine to work as well;

Hexy Complete!

but I just broke 2 servos while testing the “Move Forward” and “Move Backward” moves :frowning:

I read in a previous post that Arcbotics is sending them replacement servos? Can someone shed some details as to how that happened?

#15

Got mine finished working via bluetooth from linux too:
youtu.be/FkfdVXA3MKE

Joe: Where and how do we go about purchasing these metal gear sets for the meanwhile?

#16

No metal gears yet that fit Hexy. We’re looking at trying to find a supplier again, but last time we did this we didn’t have much luck.

As far as replacement gears, we have them quoted and should have them in stock in 1-2 weeks (presuming the Chinese manufacturers keep to their timelines, don’t hold your breath). We’re currently expecting them to sell for $5 per pack of 10 sets of gears.

#17

[quote=“roboalchemist”]No metal gears yet that fit Hexy. We’re looking at trying to find a supplier again, but last time we did this we didn’t have much luck.

As far as replacement gears, we have them quoted and should have them in stock in 1-2 weeks (presuming the Chinese manufacturers keep to their timelines, don’t hold your breath). We’re currently expecting them to sell for $5 per pack of 10 sets of gears.[/quote]

Why don’t you come up with a clutch system to go between the servo and the horns (or replace the horns with a clutch) that disengages when there is too much torque, that way the give point would be the clutch and not the gears in the servos. Then you can just reset the clutch when this happens.

#18

[quote=“neogeek”]Mine is up and working. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhcNxiPwj_g

Only “issue” was not high enough amp batteries. Got the powerex (amazon) batteries and that with the 1.7 firmware solved everything. Oh and had to order the batteries 2x as I forgot to use 5 and only got a 4 pack the first time. I still get some shaking on one or two of the servo’s (not sure my charger is up to the high miliamp batteries and will amazon a new one (man projects are money pits).

wait… ok now that I think about it…

Body issues (build):
On the build… I did not know about “flip” the piece over if the screw did not fit (makes sense in hindsight with using a laser cutter as the laser is refracted by the acrylic and would have a slightly larger hole on the backside). IMHO (though I have not done it) the drop of superglue in the hole before and after screwing it in sounds genius. I went to the local hobby shop (insert local name brand here) and got some super duper small nuts and bolts instead of the screws.

Servo:
sigh, I join the stripped gear club last night, probably bad calibration on my part and I noticed that the servo mount to the acrylic is one that the screws lifted on. I might tear apart and do the nut/bolt on all those joins. Maybe the additional torque on the servo as it was at an odd angle (screws came out) made it strip the gears?

Power:
I found a 5volt 5amp power supply at my local “good army” and tested with multi meter for proper voltage and amperage (got lucky this one floats between 4.99 and 5.01 volts) need to wire that up as a tether cable while I test new movements.

Electronic:
The 1.7 firmware is a must, I had the “spastic colon” mode aka curl aka seizure bot movements until that build. I run mac and windows and did not have problem with the pomoco on windows but did on mac until the 1.0 release of that. Much like any software/firmware latest greatest is the best bet.

I have not tried the bluetooth module yet. :astonished: I did not order it but it came with it, thanks! :smiley:

This is my first hexabot build project hardware and what internet research I did before throwing my money to back the kickstarter I could see this was an entry level project. For the price the quality and build experience is more than what I “backed” (paid) for. Not trying to kiss ass or excuse some of the speed bumps in the process, just saying for getting a first production product this thing rocks.[/quote]

I have the blue Hexy too and the same leg shakes, are there others with the same leg that shakes if so it must be in the firmware that is causing this shake!

#19

So what should a Hexy look like when it is “resting?” Should the legs be flat on the ground or slightly bent? Wish I could find a picture.

#20

Leg standing vertical perpendicular to the ground, with feet flat on the ground.

#21

I think I phrased my question wrong. When you press “zero” on the PoMoCo what should the robot do? On mine, most of the legs seem to want to be straight out from the body, but a few don’t do the same things. I’m trying to figure out how to calibrate so it will stand up correctly after “zero.”

#22

“Zero” doesn’t make Hexy stand up. “Zero” is meant to put all Hexy’s joints to their zero position (e.g. in the middle of the movement range). “Get up” or “Reset” will make Hexy stand up. You use the “Zero” movement to apply the required offsets to Hexy’s legs to accurately calibrate the servos (using the + and - buttons in PoMoCo).

#23

I’d suggest you put that in the directions PDF. The auto-centering is wicked cool, but finding out how to deal with the slightly crooked joints on nearly half the servos after assembling it is disheartening.

#24

I don’t have one working and I feel that this was not ready for retail sale - “suggestions” on where to put batteries, unresolved issues with some Bluetooth modules that were shipped and really sub-par documentation make me feel like I have funded someone’s research project, which is not at all how it was presented: I purchased a retail product on Makershed.

I recognize the challenges in producing a kit like this for the price, but if it’s not doable, then you don’t purport to. I have not seen anyone here who actually has a working Hexy, 100%.

#25

I agree about the documentation, its not up to the level that it should be, and we’re currently working on that (I’m finally re-making the build guide right now, for example). It’ll take a while, but over the course of the next month you should notice a significant improvements on the website.

I’m also trying to get a wiki up and started, but I’ve been having huge issues with spammers flooding it every time I open registration, so I’m trying to figure out how to make it open yet workable.

However, as to no one here having a working Hexy, I very much disagree. There are plenty of people on this forum who not only have it up and running, but are doing some pretty amazing things with it. You can also search “hexy the hexapod” in youtube and come up with a few dozen videos of it working.

#26

I’m glad to hear that people have it working, but anyone who does has gone above and beyond what is offered in the docs and other supplied source of info - as I said, there are unresolved issues with some Bluetooth modules that were shipped, non-instructions WRT powering the Hexy: which should be a pretty simple set of statements, a cookbook not a series of suggestions on what might or might not work and the poor state of the documentation in general.

A simple thing such as getting the Bluetooth module to work is a serious challenge and not just for me judging by the contents of the forum.

I really do see that you’re trying, but this is not a kit ready for retail sale. You’ve basically got people paying $$$ and spending time to help discover and tune towards getting an alpha/research quality product working.

#27

We spell out exactly which batteries we recommend. We say which batteries not to use. That sounds pretty cookbook to me.
github.com/ArcBotics/Hexy/wiki/Powering-Hexy

Perhaps I’m missing something, but short of actually including a set of batteries and a charger (which would be redundant for many people, and increase the costs for everyone), I’m not sure what more you’re looking for. If you let me know, I’ll be sure to include it in the documentation.

As I explained in your post for your bluetooth, you got one of the very few 6 pin devices we ever got, and I apologize the for the inconvenience of that, and we are including that in the documentation as per your suggestion in case someone else fall into that problem. However, out of 1500 units shipped, that probably accounts for about 10 of them.

Bluetooth is rarely a simple thing, and rightfully the most often then people have trouble with. We thus have a step-by-step tutorial covering it, for both OSX and windows:
github.com/ArcBotics/Hexy/wiki/Bluetooth
We think we have identified most of the issues people have, and are including that in our new batch of documents. If you have any suggestions as to more we could include, I am more than happy to do so.

While I do agree that better and clearer documentation is needed (and should be ready to go in a week, as I’ve been working on it for a while now), Hexy is a research platform. Its purpose is to get people spending time discovering what it can be. It is not a toy ready to play with, the reason we made it a kit. While we may release a version of Hexy which is sold as ready-to-go in the future (in a year or two), we do bill Hexy v1 as an introduction to advanced robotics. We have actively discouraged people who want to use it as such for their first robot, or in a classroom setting. Hexy is currently to hexapods what linux is to operating systems. Its going to take some work. However, it also comes at linux prices. If you want an apple, you can pay apple prices and get a Bioloid kit. Just be prepared to spend $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ instead of $$$. This choice comes up often. UPrint vs Makerbot is another good example. Just like makerbot, however, we hope to improve over time to be fairly comparable (although we plan on keeping open source :wink:.

That said, people like Michael and Rob have been able to do amazing things with Hexy, so much so we now link to their work right on the Hexy product page. I’m really happy with what this community has been able to do, and hope that I can include more of it into the mainline documentation and code. Such also is the spirit of open source.

The role of ready-to-go product lies with the release version of Sparki, which we are indeed putting a ton of effort into documenting before it goes out the door.

If you have any specific changes you’d recommend, please let us know and we’ll be happy to implement them.

#28

After a couple of weeks, my Hexy is NOT quite up and running, yet. I had some issues loading the new Servotor firmware. I am still unable to get PoMoCo 2.1 running, but version 1.0 works.

I am glad to hear that the documentation is being improved. This is the sole source of my frustration.

I bought Hexy because I wanted a fun project to learn Arduino programming. However, the packaging is misleading: “…full tutorials and documentation”. (see above comment.)

Hexy is ready for retail distrobution IF it were to be marketed as either only a hexipod developement platform, or if there were complete, canned, downloadable code available.

#29

What specifically isn’t working about it? I haven’t heard about that problem. If you explain what’s wrong I can help.