i-Sobot crash & burn

I knew those tiny servos were gunna be a problem. :)
This is vid of an i-Sobot with problems.
Three weeks out of the box and one of the servos has "locked up". Sometimes it moves, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it just moves slowly. In any case it's not doing what the corresponding motor on the other leg is doing.
From what I hear on the i-Sobot forum, this may be a known problem.
It started with the bot "falling over a lot". It wasn't until I took a close look I noticed the uppermost servo on the right leg ("thigh") moved in one direction, but less easily in the other.
No amount of adjusting with the supplied allen key has so far made any diff.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• isobot
• tomy
• broken
• servo

[GirLuffer]

I'm prolly going to get one, but I dont really want something like this to happen. Is it possible to fix it yourself? And if not, can you send it to the store and they can fix it for you maybe?

[kymhorsell]

These days the things are pretty cheap, so there's not much damage if the thing croaks.

But there's not much chance of fixing it yourself. The wiring makes it hard to disassemble and the servos are custom, anyway.

Finally, the maker apparently prohibits the store or third parties from getting into the repair act. At least, that's what my seller told me when I tried to get it fixed under the 30-day warranty.

The company (tried the US front) didn't answer any emails.

So it's still broken. :(

[GirLuffer]

Ok,thanks for helping out. ^^ Too bad that yours is broken... what happened to your's leg to make it that way?

[kymhorsell]

Nothing special. I played with it a bit for the first couple of weeks I had it, and it just locked up a servo. It happened over a couple of days, so I didn't notice it at first. As I say in the blurb "it started falling over a lot" when first switched on -- when it tries to do a little dance and bows at the end. I've heard from a couple of other people they've had similar problems, but sometimes it can be fixed by just adjusting a screw. Mine didn't.

[trentfarmer]

Ok heres the story. I tried to use the hex driver to tighten up the leg joints but the hexoagonal wouldn't fit into the joint? This means that tomy didnt even put the right size screw into the leg joint. So i had to get a pair of clippers and tighten it using that. It totally wrecked the paint on the tiny screw and deformed the outside but the screw tightened and i was able to get the leg working again. All because tomy put in the wrong size screw!

[kymhorsell]

No, I didn't find any problem with the hex key. The screws don't fit very snugly with the key, but the key turns them OK. As far as I can tell, the key supplied is no worse than a standard (i.e. larger :) Allen wrench/bolt.

[rfountai]

Sorry this happened to ya, man. Hope you can resolve it eventually. Still, thx for posting. It's good to see this so the rest of us can recognize if, heaven forbid, it happens to one of our I-Sobots.

[nogard888899]

lol he fell flat on his face

[kymhorsell]

Touch wood this is the only servo on about a dozen robots that's blown for the past 12 m.

The problem with the isobot is the servos are so small and unusual, and the wiring is integrated inside the limbs, it's almost impossible to repair yourself.

I've been able to hack other bots that have standard servos and "wiring on the outside" fine.

[kymhorsell]

Good luck for you. But as I mentioned on the vid, that's the first thing I tried and it isn't the problem. The servo itself is intermittently stuck. Even when I back the screw off completely, I can feel the thigh servo is not always giving the full range of motion.