"AI Motor" - a servo for small robots that isn't R/C servo based.

Posted by John Nagle on October 11, 2006, 2:33 am

Here's something interesting: the "AI Motor".

The manual for the thing is here:

http://www.megarobotics.com/AI%20MOTOR-701_1001%20manual%20v1.03%20korean.pdf

It's a strange mixture of English and Korean. The important stuff, like the
block diagrams and protocol specs, are in English, though.

This is a 4-wire device; power, ground, transmit data, and receive data.
Talks to a serial port. These devices are addressable, can be
daisy-chained, and talk what seems to be a reasonable binary
protocol, with useful commands like "Position Set", "Position Read",
and "Control Gain Set". Price about CAN$77 each.

No idea if this is a good device, but at least we're finally out
of PWM servo interfaces and into a real protocol, where you
can find out what the servo is doing.

John Nagle

Posted by on October 11, 2006, 8:43 am

Found their english version;

http://www.megarobotics.com/AI%20MOTOR-701%20manual%20v1.02%20english.pdf

Here is a US dealer
http://www.garage-technologies.com/AImotors.html
$65 forAI Motor AI-701, 7 kg*cm stall torque
and $90 forAI Motor AI-1001 10 kg*cm stall torque

Note that the Openservo project has many of the features in mind for
their own work. However, the form factor and linkages for the
Megarobotics put it in another category.

While I was browsing the dealer for the Megarobotics, I found another
comparable product at
http://www.e-clec-tech.com/robotis.html However, it was only for
preorders. But, at $900 forthe complete kit with 19 servos, the servos
must be cheaper than $45.

The company has a very difficult site to navigate because you are
mostly presented with a list of brands, without pictures until you dig
down deeper. But, they have A LOT of products.

Joe Dunfee

Posted by John Nagle on October 11, 2006, 12:52 pm

cadcoke3@yahoo.com wrote:

> Found their english version;
>
> http://www.megarobotics.com/AI%20MOTOR-701%20manual%20v1.02%20english.pdf

Here's a humanoid robot that uses those motors:

http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~mperkows/CLASS_479/S2006/AkDong_TDP.pdf

It looks like putting legs and arms together with those units is
really easy, but it's not clear how strong the links are.

John Nagle
Animats

Posted by Joe Strout on October 11, 2006, 3:42 pm

> These devices are addressable, can be
> daisy-chained, and talk what seems to be a reasonable binary
> protocol, with useful commands like "Position Set", "Position Read",
> and "Control Gain Set". Price about CAN$77 each.
>
> No idea if this is a good device, but at least we're finally out
> of PWM servo interfaces and into a real protocol, where you
> can find out what the servo is doing.

Looks interesting, but it's hardly the first -- all the high-end digital
servos have these sorts of features, don't they? (I haven't looked at
them too closely because they're beyond my budget.)

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