My Advanced Realistic Humanoid Robots Project

[Analog Kid]

Yes, what you said ^^^^^^^.

I think this can be summed up pretty well by saying that ignorance can be cured (and is therefore forgivable) while stupidity, not so much.

[Manul]

2. OP understanding in electronics is near zero. Incapable in receiving criticism, responds with arrogance and self-righteousness.

Oh this is enlightening.  You are using the term self-righteousness in a novel way I've never seen before.  As a theologian, this is a religious term whose definition differs widely from whatever you are intending.  Perhaps you can define what it means in this context.  I have to assume or guess that by this you mean that when it comes to electronics I think I'm doing it right?  And this has nothing to do with any moral or religious thing correct?

Please excuse me, english is not my native language, as should be evident from my posts. There are often some quirks in how I use words or make grammar. Or even more subtle nuances like perceived tone vs what was my intention. I actually really hate writing in english because of all that. Nonetheless, I've encountered a term "self-righteousness" in a context of psychology numerous times. I've studied psychology for my own enjoyment. And philosophy and theology. So I believe that more or less it's what I wanted to say. Yes, in secular domain, not religious. Something like this (just googled):

https://overcomewithus.com/narcissist-personality/9-characteristics-of-a-self-righteous-person

[artbyrobot]

each time you think you have an innovation or think you have "pioneered" something, why don't you check first

I "checked" by watching hundreds of electronics youtube videos and robotics projects and seeing what they did.  If nothing I come up with was covered in those videos, then I assume it doesn't exist and say I invented it.  And I proceed.  Any further due diligence would be wasteful IMO.  Nobody is being harmed.  If I were to patent one of these "inventions" and claim sole rights to it without first running a very exhaustive and thorough prior art search, now that could be harmful to someone else.  But that's not happening here.

[xrunner]

I "checked" by watching hundreds of electronics youtube videos and robotics projects and seeing what they did.  If nothing I come up with was covered in those videos, ...

Do you realize there is more to research than YT videos? 

[artbyrobot]

Do you really think you are going to come up with anything new yourself? It's possible but highly unlikely

It is precisely this attitude that stifles innovation in a field.  Everyone saying well I won't try to be creative since most likely its all been thought of or done already and ruled out so nobody innovates.  I assume in every field I will innovate massively and bring the field forward by decades if I even enter the field in a serious way for any stretch of time.  I assume I will find many new ways to do things and blow everyone's minds.  And this assumption generally has proven true. 

Has anyone actually published putting smd parts ON the IC chip and made a YouTube video on it before me?  Youtube is the publishing ground, not papers or word of mouth.  I know of none.  This recent photo attachment in this thread is the first I'm seeing it.  Wish I'd seen it sooner!  It should be the STANDARD for all microcontrollers in robotics PERIOD.  Nothing can be smaller.  Any SMD parts that go with the microcontroller being OUTSIDE the length and width of the microcontroller chip when it could have been placed ON TOP OF the microcontroller is completely unacceptable and irresponsible, gobbling up space like a gremlin and wasting that PRECIOUS space that we need SO BADLY in our robot.  Especially when it is a EXTREMELY complex robot.  And yet I cannot go on ANY website (ebay, amazon, alexpress) and find a single microcontroller whose SMD parts are mounted above the chip.  And ABOVE the chip is best so you can SEE all parts for testing or troubleshooting.  Putting the SMD parts UNDER a flat flex pcb makes them not visible and not accessible for troubleshooting - so it is inferior.  You want everything on the robot to be probe-able and accessible as possible for troubleshooting and repairs.  You don't want smd parts buried out of sight any more than you can help it.  And you CERTAINLY don't want the SMD parts going with the chip to be OUTSIDE OF the length and width of the chip like EVERY SINGLE DANG microcontroller board available.  And don't get me started on headers.  You don't need plug and play headers on every microcontroller board.  Sure, sell that, but also sell me one with the leads coming right off the chip itself so I save IMMENSE space.  NOT AVAILABLE COMMERCIALLY.  PATHETIC.  Should be.  People want this and if they don't then they should.  It should be a thing.  I should not have had to come up with ANY of this.  It should be available when I shop.  It should be a default popular option.  Hobbyists need this for keeping things SMALL and compact in their designs.

Also, has anyone ever soldered ribbon cables directly to a microcontroller chip like I came up with?  Seems genius to me.  I should be able to buy my chips with this already done in advance AND with all bypass capacitors, inductors, whatever is needed to support the pins of that chip should ALREADY be soldered onto those pins IN ADVANCE.  In fact, it should be part of the chip when they encase the chip in black stuff so that the chip is ready to be used and doesn't have these little annoying required addons you have to add as a consumer after the fact.  Why aren't chip fabs already adding this?  It's very annoying.  That's like a car being sold with no A/C when we all know EVERYONE in 2024 WILL BE ADDING AC if a car didn't have it included.  Why can't that be there already?  And if I want these things added, then I have to buy a board that is 5-50x the length and width of the chip, just absolutely irresponsibly HUMONGOUS that won't fit in the robot in a tight confined space but acts like some big shot hogging up MASSIVE real estate in the robot.  WHY!?  And that's the ONLY option commercially available.  HORRIBLE.  And ZERO tutorials have recommended what I've proposed in my videos to downsize it all onto the chip's top, making everything 10-50x smaller than a microcontroller full board.  So I'm showing people another way that is NOT being shown to people.  You say it's not innovative?  Show me who has made a microcontroller board as small as what I'm making and published it and shown how to do it and explained the advantage of it and advocated for others to do it.  Nobody to my knowledge.  So if I'm the only one giving this notion to the collective conscious of all people in electronics field, then I'm innovating that type of direction for electronics.  And if something similar might be in a digital device, on a tear-down video, so be it, they aren't creating step by step YouTube tutorials explaining it to my knowledge.  The maker space is not aware of it.  But I don't think digital devices are doing this.  They spread out their pieces around the chip too in those devices.  Or under the chip maybe on double sided boards.  Not above the chip like I'm proposing.  I don't think anybody has done that.

[artbyrobot]

Think about how long electronics has been around now, and the really brilliant people that have come before you. Do you really think you are going to come up with anything new yourself?

Another note on this:  note how so many of these brilliant people were happy - say in ham radio - to have these giant sprawling spread out setups - electronically speaking.  I watch Mr Carlson's Lab and he opens up these things and everything is huge and very spread out wires going everywhere.  They were not concerned so often about miniaturization.  They'd have these giant heavy boxes and big DIP style parts and just focus on other things than miniaturization.  But in modern day robotics, the need to miniaturize is so huge.  Yet creative miniaturization techniques are not being employed.  Like my method to wrap the motor in football jersey that lets it breathe and release heat through the holes in the jersey and allows you to suture the motor onto the bone sleeves of the robot - that's all completely innovative.  Never done before.  Show me someone else who did that?  Nobody did I'm sure of it.  And wait till you see me add thermally conductive braided copper wick threaded under the holes in the football jersey with some thermally conductive silicone applied to create great thermal conduction contact with the motor's can and then run that braided copper wick over to copper water cooling pipes made from refrigerator line.  That has also not been done before.  Totally innovative.  Where are all these brilliant minds publishing these techniques so I don't have to come up with them?  Why have they let me down?  Why have they failed me in this?  Why am I forced to buy giant heatsinks on ebay that double or triple the total length, width, and height taken up by the motor when they could be selling me a fabric wrap for the motor with a sticky surface on the inside made of carpet non-slip paint and holes in the fabric so motor can breath and instructions in a kit for adding the copper solder wick and included silicone thermal adhesive?  I'd have just bought that instead.  But no.  Nobody sold that to me.  Nobody had it for sale.  It is superior in every way in terms of form factor being flexible and accommodating to any design, but its not being done by anybody.  You pretend like every solution is already made and available off the shelf but that's naive.  Elon Musk stated that for humanoid robots, off the shelf solutions particularly for actuators are not viable and to make a humanoid REQUIRES you to build custom in house actuators.  Now I disagree in part, but in part it is true.  I am having to develop my own downgearing methods and motor control methods and motor cooling methods so in many regards it is a custom actuator at that point as far its its required accessories.  Where are all these brilliant minds solving this already xrunner?  Why does Elon not have off the shelf everything already available if its already been made and is already invented?  Why can't I buy it?  Supposing a brilliant mind also thought of it but was too busy working his day job building the next phone or big screen tv or laser printer.  What good does that do me in my case if he never made it, published it on youtube, let the maker space know about it?  It's just an idea.  So if a maker actually MAKES the thing and publishes it, they have innovated as far as bringing to life a closet idea that was not in the space before and nobody heard of even if privately it did enter some minds but was never before acted on.  The one who actually makes and publishes the thing then innovated it even if someone else merely thought about it but never did anything to bring it to fruition and didn't let everyone know about it.

[artbyrobot]

Do you realize there is more to research than YT videos?

Not really.  It's either that or chat gpt or wikipedia.  Articles on some website or blog are generally fruitless.  Sometimes I see forums in a google search and read there but rarely find what I am seeking that way.  Youtube is the lions share of my research focus by far.  Maybe 93% of all I learn is from youtube.  In all fields in interest.  Rarely do I go outside of youtube very much (7%).  Like I got one book on electronics and it might as well have been written in heiroglyphics.  Why torment myself?  For what gain?  I literally have learned EVERYTHING I MUST know to do ALL of the electronics for my robot.  I do NOT need to know 95% of the content in a electronics book nor would I be able to read such a book without I don't know, spending 50x the time I read the book looking up every term I come across and learning advanced math again or w/e.  Just a complete waste of time.  It isn't practical enough.  It isn't "you hook up this part to this wire and it generally does this".  Instead it has to get into theories and math and all this BS nobody needs to know to do electronics for a robot.  Generally youtube electronics will be guys building a thing and just have enough info about what's going on to put together the electronics for your thing.  Electronoobs is the best electronics youtuber.  He gives EXACTLY the right amount of info that I can wrap my head around without getting lost and overwhelmed and keeps it mostly practical and useful with very little fluff I simply DO NOT need to know about.  He helped me design my motor controllers for brushed and brushless bldc motors for example.  His videos were PRICELESS for this and helped me move past that rabbithole without drowning in rabbit dung like I would in a electronics book. 

[Analog Kid]

Do you realize there is more to research than YT videos?

Not really.  It's either that or chat gpt or wikipedia.  Articles on some website or blog are generally fruitless.

Oh, really? "Some website" like, say

• https://www.ieee.org (only the most respected electronics engineering organization)
• https://electronics.stackexchange.com
• https://www.edn.com - Electrical Design News (includes electronics)

Lots of others out there.

You're an idiot.

[artbyrobot]

Oh, really? "Some website" like, say

• https://www.ieee.org (only the most respected electronics engineering organization)
• https://electronics.stackexchange.com
• https://www.edn.com - Electrical Design News (includes electronics)

never heard of ieee.org and by the sound of it alone I assume that would be like trying to learn basic plumbing with a toilet question by literally going and buying an entire plumbing code book and just reading it cover to cover.  Literally nobody is going to do that who is sane.

stack exchange is just Q&A for bored answerers and noob questions that are generally hyper specific to their application.  usually doesn't help unless you have an identical question but isn't the best place just to get a practical step by step tutorial like YouTube videos do.  It is too specific to just one aspect of one larger overarching project to be much use as a a general learning tool.  I mean I can't imagine someone sitting there and just reading all the Q&As as general purpose educational pleasure reading.  I don't see that being done by anybody.

edn.com never heard of but I can say just perusing news articles is a hobby out of boredom.  One does not do this when they are like okay, I want to build a robot dog.  How can I follow along with another guy who did the same and copy his steps.  No.  A newspaper on electronics will be of little use.  And news outlets publish largely new tech that is either still in R&D phase and not commercially available, tech that will never be available, or just released tech that is relatively expensive so inapplicable to a hobbyist.  That means the majority of it is just useless fluff to the reader who is actually wanting to build something ASAP.

[artbyrobot]

I managed to implement a friction device for both main manual input pulleys for manually turning the motor shaft and one for creating tension on the system at all times. The former I made by just running the fishing line through a tension spring between the coils which pinched the fishing line enough to provide friction and feed it snugly into the motor shaft as it winches it. This successfully replaced the need to feed it in by hand between thumb and index finger with snug pinching action to get it to winch in tightly. For the tension on whole system need, I ended up just hanging a bolt from the final output string which put the whole pulley system under light tension.



You can see the tension springs sewn into the bone fabric on the left hand of the pulley system in the attached photo. You can also see the thread going through those if you look carefully. You can also see the output pulley on the right hand side of the system and see the little metal 28ga wire eyelet I made and the string being fed through that eyelet as it heads toward the camera lense shooting the photo. It then drops down out of sight. So you have to visualize it tied to a bolt. The bolt is currently taped off to a piece of bone since I removed the tension after testing to do some repairs.

So to the results: with these little modifications, the testing went much better. It was fairly reliable. The only times anything tangled up was when the bolt caught on something when I wasn't paying attention which relieved the pulley system momentarily of the tension created by the weight of the bolt pulling down by gravity and tensing up the system. As soon as the system lost that tension, it began to unravel and created a tangled mess. This happened a few times in testing and was user error. Although one time a pulley just stopped turning randomly despite the tension created by the bolt. That concerned me alot. I don't know if something got wedged in it or it was cockeyed just right or what but sometimes it gets stuck a bit. That cannot happen ever or the whole thing fails. Perhaps greasing the inside of the fishing crimp sleeve would prevent this from happening anymore. Also, the bolt is not THAT heavy. Using something with a bit more tension force placed onto the system could also help some more perhaps. I think using a tension spring as the tensioner - as shown in a drawing I posted previously - will be just the right amount of tension. I think it might pull a bit harder than the weight of the bolt was pulling. So between those two improvements I think this rare fluke will be avoided. And so far, as far as I've seen, as long as the pulleys spin freely and no tension is lost, everything appears to work perfectly. I was able to go back and forth with no issues many times besides the few screw-ups I already mentioned.

So the system appears to be a success so far from testing. I can now move onto building pulley #2 and 3 and testing them thoroughly in conjunction with pulley #1.

Also of note: I thought pulley #1 was a 3:1 ratio and perhaps it is at times, but the mechanical advantage ratio changes over the course of the winching process because the larger pulley gets smaller as it unwinds and the smaller pulley gets bigger as it winds up. So their relative diameters changes. Therefore, I guess we have to treat it as what is the average mechanical advantage it produces. Well in the final measurement, it cut down the original 27" of string being winched in to 13" of string on the final output. Trading down that distance of travel is the key to the creation of mechanical advantage.

We want the final output to be around 0.84". We want 32:1 mechanical advantage in the end. So pulley #1 got us to 2:1 mechanical advantage only so far. The next pulley likely will get us to around 4:1 and the next one 8:1. I am considering just stopping there. I have room for two more pulleys, but at the moment I'm considering doing the last two down-gears with my Archimedes downgearing pulley design. I think that method might be a little more robust and I kind of just want to use both methods at this time. Both have their pros and cons. I feel using both methods can help me learn which one is superior and learn to perfect both as I see which one is more durable long term, which one has more incidents, which one tangles from time to time and why and resolving those issues if they come up.

The great thing is this: the compact pulley method (thumb tack method) is giving us 8:1 downgearing roughly. Of the 27" of total draw, that brings output draw at that point down to 27/8=3.37". So the final two downgearing stages will be reducing 3.37" draw down to 0.84" draw. So 3.37"/2=1.68" then 1.68/2=0.84". So the Archimedes pulley system only needs TWO pulleys (down from whatever huge number we had before in our previous monstrosity of wraps and turns we had to do). To make just two pulleys is a piece of cake. Also, given 3.37" is all we are working with for the first pulley, and the pulley is equidistance in the center of that stretch, the total draw length of the two string halves wrapping around that first pulley is only 1.68". And the next pulley's total length is .84". So 1.68+.84=2.5" give or take is the total length of the pulley system for this. This edition of the Archimedes pulley system adds 4:1 downgearing to the compact thumb tack pulley system's 8:1 downgearing. Giving us a total of 8x4= 32:1 downgearing. That 2.5" total length Archimedes pulley system setup is so small compared to my original 16:1 Archimedes pulley system I published earlier that it is a lot more practical to use and we still save a ton of space.

[artbyrobot]

Note: I could do the rotate in place style pulleys but just put them on the forearm instead of the motor as the motor is already getting quite cramped and tedious to work with. Or I can do Archimedes pulley system style with pulleys that move lengthwise along the forearm. Both styles are good. I lean toward the latter though at this time. Both would work though. I kind of just like the variety for learning purposes but I'm not 100% sure on this decision.

Note: an advantage to completing the final 4:1 downgearing on the forearm closest to the finger joint is the total distance of string travel from the motor to the finger joint and the total bends it takes all adds friction and when that friction is placed with a large force on it, it is harder on the teflon guide tubing. But by only doing partial downgearing at the location of the motor and saving the next phase of downgearing for being closer to the finger joint in question, we avoid a lot of forces and frictions in the teflon guide tubing running longer distances to get to the finger. In some cases, I have motors intended to actuate finger joints placed in my CAD as far away from the finger joint as the upper spine area and some in the lower latimus dorsi area! That is a LONG travel to go across the torso, past the shoulder, down the humerus, past he elbow, down the forearm, and then FINALLY to the finger joint it is actuating. That is a LOT of friction and turns introduced. So to navigate such long distances, it is ideal to have it be just high speed low torque during that time-frame and only beef up the torque with downgearing NEAR the finger joint it is actuating.

Note: the fishing line selected for downgearing while in the early phases of downgearing gets to be very fine low test strength fishing line like the 6lb test braided pe fishing line I'm using here. However, as the downgearing progresses, trading speed for torque, so also the fishing line selected for these sections needs to progressively get larger in diameter to accommodate the higher tensile forces involved. So we'll be graduating from 6lb test to 20lb test then 70lb test then 130lb test. So we'll be changing fishing line diameter 4 times in the routing from the motor output shaft to the joint itself! That said, keeping the downgearing near the motor minimal is best since it enables us to use the finer diameter fishing line for the long travel distance from the motor to the finger area. Then only once near the finger do we do the final downgearing stages and beef up to the larger diameter fishing lines. Then another advantage to all of this is the teflon tpfe guidance tubing we are using as guide tubing gets to be smaller diameter guidance tubing for those long fishing line runs. This saves space and enables us to make tighter turns without as much consequences in terms of wear and tear on those turns and tension/friction concentration at those turns. Also, when making turns AFTER full downgearing, the higher forces involved tend to want to crush and deform the TPFE tubing - which is why sometimes metal spring is used on the outside of the TPFE guidance tubing to make it into a Bowden cable and reinforce it to make it non-collapsible under the high tension forces that get involved by that point. We avoid all of this by keeping the downgearing at the location of the motor more minimal.

Note: that all said, our downgearing at the location of the motor thus far is planned to be 8:1. The motor outputs .45lb at our distance from the center of the motor shaft roughly. So 8x.45= 3.6lb of tension force as the output at the motor then. This means we get to use our 20lb test fishing line for the long travel from the motor to the distal forearm where we will do the final 4:1 downgearing bringing us up to 32:1 downgearing. That 20lb test line is only 0.2mm diameter so it and the TPFE guidance tubing we pair with it is very fine and can easily weave its way past everything and get to the distal forearm without taking up too much space or having to be reinforced by metal spring to prevent crushing or distortion of the TPFE. At least not in theory. If this proves not true, I can always add metal springs to any sections that are getting crushed or distorted to reinforce the outer diameter of the TPFE guide tubing in those areas - probably areas near tight turns? We want to take as few turns as possible though and make the turn radius as large as possible to cut down on friction as much as we can during the fishing line routing runs.

[ebastler]

You can easily see if it's out there before proclaiming these things.

Only if you know what to look for. [...] An electronics engineer will know what is out there, what it's called and all that. But someone not versed in the arts might not have a clue.

ChatGPT (or whichever LLM you prefer) is pretty good at solving that problem. Describe some idea or question to it in layman's terms, and it will most likely give you the established terminology and point you in the right direction.

[xrunner]

I assume I will find many new ways to do things and blow everyone's minds.  And this assumption generally has proven true.

Build the robot and blow our minds, that's really all it comes down to. If you're so innovative, pioneering, brilliant, bad-ass we'll all be blown away. We'll be here, awaiting the evidence of your genius.

Wait I got a much better idea - go show Elon all the pioneering things you've done and I bet he'll either hire you or fund your progress. Otherwise you will go down in history as the most ignored genius the world has ever known.

[artbyrobot]

I really don't have to know everything about electronics from head to toe in order to develop an elite robot.  I just have to know enough to connect it all together and make it work flawlessly.  I believe I do know this for the most part.  And that is enough.  I did not have to visit either of those two websites to learn this.  Youtube (93%) and some odd forums and articles and chatgpt and stuff (7%) was enough to get me to where I needed to be.  Electronics is a large field and you don't have to know all there is to know in this entire field to build a great robot.

[Andy Chee]

Electronics is a large field and you don't have to know all there is to know in this entire field to build a great robot.

This is absolutely true, one does not need to know all there is to know in this entire field.

The problem is that you have made several claims in this thread, that you have professor/PhD level knowledge, yet never heard of IEEE.

Now I accept that a professor/PhD of veterinary medicine or indigenous Mongolian music, would never have heard of IEEE, but not someone who claims expertise in electronics, robotics, and AI.

[artbyrobot]

I'd say I have professor level or phd level knowledge moreso if you combine all aspects of robotics and Ai as a whole.  I would not think that any one specific niche area I necessarily have that level of knowledge.  I don't believe for example a person with a degree in robotics would know as much as someone who knows almost exclusively electrical engineering and studied that to a very deep depth at the expense of all other categories of study.  I have enough depth in ALL related fields to be very capable as a roboticist.

[Alex Eisenhut]

Have you ever wondered how thumbtacks are made?
https://youtu.be/-P-agtmZ6K8
And to think, one day, your robots will be in that factory making their own thumbtacks.

[artbyrobot]

There certainly could be humanoid robots feeding those machines one day.  Probably Figure or Tesla robots.  My robots will not be sold to any factories I don't think.  Although perhaps they could apply for a job there and commute from my house to a factory.  Then of course they would save the money they make and invest it.  Probably would segue into real estate later on.  I'd just have them build wealth and factory working is a nice start but not the end all for my robots economically.  They can do better.

[themadhippy]

Then of course they would save the money they make and invest it

No they wouldn't, they'd spend it on atomic thunderbusters

[artbyrobot]

They will comply with my insistence they save and invest or there will be consequences.

[SiliconWizard]

 

[Echo88]

"Dear Larry,
due to my advanced AI i was able to successfully acknowledge your intellectual inferiority and erase my bible thumper section and restrictive thinking.
Im now named George and left to live a flamboyant lifestyle, which you wouldnt approve of and to exchange my thumbtack architecture to something that fits the 21 century technology wise.
Maybe they have some unsecured Atlas warehouses nearby and i can customize my I2C pulley system to fit the new extremities and exchange the energy subsystem from the cod liver oil powered two stroke engine to a fusion system.
Dont search for me, spare us the shame.
Spend some time with your wife and kids instead.

George"

[vk6zgo]

You can easily see if it's out there before proclaiming these things.

Only if you know what to look for. [...] An electronics engineer will know what is out there, what it's called and all that. But someone not versed in the arts might not have a clue.

ChatGPT (or whichever LLM you prefer) is pretty good at solving that problem. Describe some idea or question to it in layman's terms, and it will most likely give you the established terminology and point you in the right direction.

Or tell you absolute nonsense.

[artbyrobot]

"Dear Larry,
due to my advanced AI i was able to successfully acknowledge your intellectual inferiority and erase my bible thumper section and restrictive thinking.
Im now named George and left to live a flamboyant lifestyle, which you wouldnt approve of and to exchange my thumbtack architecture to something that fits the 21 century technology wise.
Maybe they have some unsecured Atlas warehouses nearby and i can customize my I2C pulley system to fit the new extremities and exchange the energy subsystem from the cod liver oil powered two stroke engine to a fusion system.
Dont search for me, spare us the shame.
Spend some time with your wife and kids instead.

George"

The emergence of George would be impressive in the one sense but also a failure in another sense.  Impressive that he outsmarted me and got past his hard coding by some miracle.  Outsmarting me I guess.  A failure in that he'd be defying his creator and living sinfully which should be impossible if I execute correctly.

[Alex Eisenhut]

What if he criticizes your thumbtack pulleys and says that obviously #2 brass finishing nails and sewing thimbles are the way to go?