continuing

Hello all,

At the end of this month (June 2022), I will proudly participate in the monthly Engineers Teams meeting at my job to explain and show the inMoov project and how I start this adventure.

The aim is to teach them that we can do great things by combining Open source projects, Mechatronic solutions, Arduino platforms and Team work.

I…[Read more]

My robot sings \”Lacrimosa\” (Requiem for a Friend, Preisner)

I already bought the kinect!
for more information on the kinect visit 👉 https://inmoov.fr/howto-kinect/
😉

After installing Fred\’s left Bicep, I asked him to record a video for me.
This went well until he went to point to the virtual white board on his right side.
Now he not talking to me 🙁
So now I\’m working on his right arm 🙂

I had a bit of a play with a few servos to see how they performed when the voltage to them started to get a bit low.

It\’s surprising just how much the current increases when they start to struggle.

I made Fred a happy robot with the addition of his left bicep, right up until he woke up his virtual white board was on his right side. 🙂

The final part of Fred\’s Left Shoulder.
Here we set the feedback pots position and test it all out with MRL.

Fred\’s Left Shoulder Part 4.
It\’s all coming together 🙂

I recently got a new toy.
I don\’t normally post unboxings in here, but this is so handy when setting up your servos.

This servo tester is great for positioning servos and testing the range before connecting the servos to the servo drivers and fire up MRL.
I also opened this one up to see what was inside it.

In this video we will build and add the bicep rotator to Fred\’s Left Shoulder.

Part 2 of Fred\’s Shoulder.
More worm drive fun and games 🙂

Since Fred was insisting, I started on his Left Shoulder.
This is the start of the new version of the shoulder with the ball bearings.

Just for a laugh, I turned on the webcam to record Fred 🙂

When your building a robot, sometimes, you need to sense a signal or a voltage that is well over the rating of your input.
This is not a real problem, because you can use a voltage divider to drop the voltage down a proportional amount.

I did this with Fred’s battery monitoring inputs, where the Battery voltages can…[Read more]

Fred’s Brain Part 5
Fred is a non-standard Inmoov.
The head in particular has a number of modifications, starting with the Advanced Eyes from Dakota76 and the Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi Spy Camera mounted in one of Fred’s eye’s.
The other major difference, is in the way I control the servos, using the PCA9685 I2C 16 channel…[Read more]

Fred\’s Right Shoulder Part 4.

I released this a few weeks ago and for got to post it here.
The shoulders in Fred are standard, latest version from this site.
The new ball bearing setup are much smoother.

Continuing with Fred\’s Right shoulder, during this I find an issue with the pot and have to replace the pot.

In this video, I print out and assemble more components for Fred\’s shoulder.
I also mount the shoulder assembly onto Fred\’s upper torso and set the feed back pot position.

Today, I start on Fred\’s Right Shoulder.
This updated version of the Inmoov shoulder has bearings in it 🙂

Continuing with the Fred\’s Brain series, this time I look a speech services.
Both TTS and STT

So last week I unboxed a new Raspberry Pi 4 with 8G of RAM.
This week, I setup the OS and install MyRobotLab on it.

I needed to know what the battery voltage was and also had some issues with the MPU6050 running with the Raspiberry Pi 4.
To I added one to the I2C port on the Arduino Nano.

Every had a servo not turn, but still make sound like it was trying to run?
In this video I have a look at one of the micro servos from Fred\’s Right Eye Mech.

In this video I upgrade Fred’s one and only Arduino to give it more power.

During programming and testing, I noticed the Raspberry Pi running MyRobotLab was throtteling and reporting low power.
This has started since the program has been using the two UltraSonic sensors attached to the Arduino Nano.
With the plan to…[Read more]

This week I look at Fred\’s Brain, or more accurately, his program.
This program is getting to be quite complex, so this is the first of a multi part series.
Fred uses MyRobotLab at it\’s core.
There are links in the video description.

Networking Part 1
In this video we look at the physical layer of the Open Systems Interconnect or OSI model for networking.

Please Like, Subscribe and ring the notification bell to be alerted when the next video is released.
It also a form of support that costs you nothing, but does help the channel a lot.

Maybe drop into the discord server for…[Read more]

Time to make Fred a bit more powerful.
Lets wire up the battery and connect the power switches 🙂

In this video I Make up Fred second network cable and the power wires for the Raspberry Pi, the touch screen and the Network switch.
I also setup the AT30 Switched Mode Power Supply and set it voltage.

Terminating Cat5e 10/100 Ethernet cables.

In this video I install the first of the network cables into Fred InMoov.

Please Like, Subscribe and ring the notification bell to be alerted when the next video is released.
It also a form of support that costs you nothing, but does help the channel a lot.

For those of you who have been following along with Fred’s Build, I have now added the mounts for the battery packs.
I have two mounts, each holding up to a 4AH 20V battery, that 80 Watt Hours per battery, compared to the 72 Watt Hours of the 6 volt 12 Amp hour gel-cell battery.
Having the two means I can change the batteries one at a time…[Read more]

Part 3 of building Fred\’s upper stomach.
In this video I install the two servos and assemble the side-to-side torso bearing assembly.

Time to continue welding up parts for the upper stomach 🙂

So the first in the series of videos on the upper stomach is done 🙂

Fred now has a PIR sensor and a pair of Ultrasonic sensors fitted after a bit of repair work to his chest.

I actually created this video a while back, but forgot to edit and upload it. 🙂
I upgraded Fred\’s brain from a Raspberry Pi 3 to a Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB or RAM.

Now that Fred has a back cover to protect any electronics, it time to install a Switch Mode Power Supply (SMPS) and the servo driver 🙂

Last week, I added a chest to Fred, Somewhere to attach medals I guess 🙂
This week I add the back cover 🙂

Fred looks better with a chest, In this video I give him one 🙂

In this video I continue in building the new stand for Fred\’s head.
To make a stable stand, I\’m using the upper part of a standard Inmoov torso and using a bust set of parts I was shown on Thingiverse, we now have a stable base.

Well, started on a new stand for Fred\’s new head today:

I’ve been printing out the torso to use as Fred’s new head’s stand.
I’ve been pointed to a bust stand for the torso, which is very cool.
When looking for the instructions, I found all the torso ones, and the back one’s, but is there any for the chest?
I thought there used to be, but i could be wrong…
If not, I guess I’ll have to document…[Read more]

Merry X-Mass to everyone out there.
Tried to setup a new and better neck assembly for Fred\’s Head.
Didn\’t quite go to plan 🙁

Got Fred on a power trip this week, talking about power 🙂

I started to look at joints that can be used in robots.
There are quite a few and a lot of different ways they can be driven.
Here is a look at some of the different types and a bit of a peek at the new foot design.

I let Fred get in front of the camera again 🙂
This time he;s talking about the power of rotation in part 4 of the Walking Robot series.

Ever wondered about PID Loops?
These are used in servos, cruise controls, industrial ovens, and pressure control systems.
Here is a video where Fred explains how they work.

I hope you enjoy 🙂

Just out is the Walking Robots Part 3, Rate of rotation video.
This one goes into the speed at which the various leg joint will need to rotate at for a normal walking gait.

It was a while in production but here is Part two of the Walking Robots Series.
Presented by Fred, an Inmoov Robot, or at least his head 🙂
Feel free to ask question in the comments

Next week in Part 9 of Fred\’s Head, I go in to how this was achieved.

Don\’t forget to have fun building your robot 🙂

Looking at making Fred a Bipedal walking robot.
But before starting on the design, we first need to know and understand what all the challenges will be.
As part of working on this I have now uploaded the first of the walking robot series to YouTube

This will be a huge project as I investigate each of the problems we…[Read more]

Finally the power up and testing of Fred\’s head

Fred\’s Head Part 7.
This is proving to be a bigger job than I first expected, Hopefully it will be all worth it in the end 🙂

Next week, the power up and testing

Part 6 of build Freds head is now out.

I hope you enjoy it 🙂

In this weeks video, I mount the Raspberry Pi 3 into the head of my Inmoov robot Fred

Now that I have most of the head together, I should think about setting up the Raspberry Pi 3 with MyRobotLab
In this video that what I will be doing.
MRL is not the only way to control the Inmoov robot, but it is the official system for the Inmoov project.
Others have successfully used EZrobot for their non-standard robots, and recently I was…[Read more]

Well i finally got the Advance eyes installed in to the new head for Frem, my Inmoov Build.

Continuing on with building a new Inmoov robot head for Fred.
This time I work on the eyes 🙂

So I started building the new head for Fred, my Inmoov build.

The Transparent filament looks really cool for a robot head. 🙂

Starting to work on a new head for Fred.
This time, I\’m going non-standard and printing out re-mixed parts,
but before starting, I needed something to sit the head on while i work on it.

Meet Fred\’s new head stand.

I spotted this Grove AI HAT for Edge Computing.
Its designed to connect to the Raspberry Pi and act as an AI Accelerator for the Pi.
So I got one to have a bit more of a look.

Continuing the video series on the Static Leg,
Here are the thighs 🙂

Now complete, Fred\’s Knees

So continuing to build the static leg for Fred, my build of the Inmoov robot.

Ok, so i started to print out the feet and ankles.
So far all looks good.

It\’s been a while since I did anything with the Inmoov project.
So I decided to print the Inmoov statue again, but this time at 300 mm tall.
Came out OK.
But have a look for yourself 🙂

Success,
Mounter 16 channel PWM Servo driver in the left bicep.
Also added a small SMPS buck converter in the power supply line to allow for later increasing the a 12V or higher battery system.
Tripled up the wires for the power supply to cope with the current draw of the servos.
Only need to sort out a connector for the power in the shoulder and…[Read more]

Running a 16 way ribbon through the Bicep Rotator is tight, but it is doable.
Held in place with CA glue.
Next job, terminate each end to where they need to go.