Why to launch the campaign ?
Dear supporters, we are launching this crowdfunding on the indiegogo platform in order to meet the need of people who failed in buying Dobot on KS. All the rights and interests will be the same as the campaign on KS, the only slight issue is that the product delivery will be on the second batch. Your interest and patience is massively appreciated, thank you!
For DESKTOP. Arduino-based, 4-axis parallel-mechanism Robot Arm, 0.2mm precision! Bring industrial robot to everyone. Effective tool.
Short Summary
Our dream is to bring the industrial robot arm to daily life, let everyone can enjoy the joy of it and simplify the life from doing repetitive tasks. So we tried to creat a
high repeat precision (up to 0.2mm), stepper motor, Arduino-based, easy to control ( 7 controlling methods), low-cost desktop robotic arm. It calls
Dobot.
How Dobot Arm make the magic happen?
Imagine when your new born baby says "flower" the first time in his/her life, and it gets sent to a Arduino robotic arm, automatically the word transforms to the character 龙 (dragon, see the gif below) in Chinese calligraphy on a piece of paper or a 3D printed plastic flower, or be typed on a mobile phone that sends to your parents.
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As makers, we love tools. Dobot robot arm will play a big role being a good tool, you can grave a film figure by yourself with the help of Dobot arm, sounds cool, isn't it? DIY the Transformers, Baymax, Mario or other figure you like now !
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3D printing pen works with Dobot
With the high repeatability of Dobot, Dobot robotic arm can well work with 3D printing pen to print anything you want!
Why Choose Dobot Arm?
Dobot Brings Industrial Precision and Power to Your Life
Dobot’s high precision is the highlight. We spent much of our energy to optimize its technology. With such a low cost, we have managed to maintain the industrial precision level. When performing repetitive actions, the error in precision is as small as 0.2mm, empowering you to do delicate work without losing the precision. See below for more detailed info on specs.
Dobot is Super Easy to Control
Easy usability comes first during the design of Dobot. We have given a lot of thought on users without technical backgrounds, and how to help them better control robotic arms. In order to make as young as 5-years-old kids able to use Dobot in ease, we have done extensive research and designed 7 controlling methods, including PC, mobile APP, EEG, voice, vision, leap motion and gestures, whichever suits your purpose the best.
Stepper motor: Dobot works quietly
We have also considered on where the users will be using it, and tired our best to make the noise level as low as possible. By using customized stepper motor, we are able to minimize noise level, making Dobot much quieter than low-cost servo robotic arms and more household-friendly.
Dobot is open source
As a group of devoted open source fans, we believe open source makes the world better by levering the power of collective minds. Yet to help you understand better of what we do, we are working around the clock on some of the code that need more notations and explanations. But we make our promise here that after the indiegogo campaign, we will upload the code. Keep in touch, there are more surprises to come.
Even More Exciting For Makers!
Dobot supports three OpenSource Firmware for special applications and developers with different programming preferences.
1. Complete developed by Dobot team Easy for developers familiar with Industrial robots.
2. Base on grbl (https://github.com/grbl/grbl) Easy for developers familiar with open source CNC machine.
3. Base on Marlin (https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin) Easy for developers familiar with RepRap compatiable 3D printer.
Also we provide communication interface for OpenCV (http://opencv.org/) to add vision to Dobot.
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Dobot is a maker team and we create what's best for makers. We use Arduino as the controller. Although when tackling some critical problems, we found this might not be the perfect solution, after continuous improvements, we believe this could equip superb functionality with Dobot.
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Processing is the widely-applauded data visualization and programming platform for beginners. Simply drag and click, you can program Dobot at your will on its user-friendly interface.
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Scratch is also a briiliant visual programming language that's more widely used by children, artists and makers. It helps them to control and program all types of electronic devices and interactive products. Dobot's control is based on the easy-for-understanding serial communication protocol whose working principles are all open-sourced. We will add more manpower in developing control extensions based on Scratch, and believe this will make operating Dobot applications easier for children, enabling them to bring their ideas to life.
Arduino Library
We have included diversified written motion functions for user to make their own Dobot code community. We’ve included forward and inverse solution, point to point, line, jump Path Planning, everything is open source, and you can make it better. These code examples have very similar principles to industrial robot developing and they are very useful for one who wants to understand how an industrial robot works. In our code, we provide the limit and working range protection, various joint and coordinate commands, combine these functions and you are the magician.
Electronic Parts
Our initial thought was to design a shield for the Arduino (Mega2560) for connecting mega2560 and 3 stepper driver boards and also to contain a current amplifying module to drive the vacuum pump and the solenoid valve. Meanwhile, it can manage driving 2 servos with 3 steppers. Based on that, we modified the design to accommodate more users, thus another shield of Arduino was born to satisfy all of the above functions. This eliminates the constitute of stepper driver boards and reconsiders the measures for overcurrent protection and heat dissipation. Our core competency is to employ fewer wires with a better outlook ensured.
Tech. Spec.
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The Quality Assurance
Mechanical Parts
How Dobot is made and how we made its incredible precision level possible.
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The mechanical structure entirely employed CNC cutting technology. For key parts the machinery accuracy has reached 0.02mm. Joint connections adopted high accuracy axes coupled with chrome alloy interference lit, ensuring structural stability and accuracy. On the motor side, Dobot designed the high accuracy speed reducer motor, providing consistent motor power for the robot arm. On the material side, Dobot was made of high strength aluminium alloy and processed by anodic oxidation treatment, to ensure the sleekness and strength of the surface.
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Here's some details about the manufacturing, we chose the high performance CNC machine instead of laser cut to guarantee a 0.02mm precision, which provides the basis of our high quality.
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For software, we have done a great deal of optimization. The software supports speed look-ahead small line blocks interpolation algorithm, able to fit any type of curve and ensure processing efficiency. Moreover, with the Three Axes Linkage Method fine interpolation, you can control the trajectory of the end effector of the Dobot accurately, empowering it with complex curvilinear motions.
How things going?
Dec 2015 In preparation of our indiegogo campaign
Jan 2016 Preparing mass production of the optimal design
Feb 2016 Assembling and shipping Dobots to all of our awesome backers
Who is Creating Dobot Arm?
Dobot is created by the Dobot team. We are committed to creating a desktop and family-mode industrial robot to control so that everyone can have a desktop assistant and family assistant, which is easy to assemble and control, empowered by high precision.
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As a group of six industrial robot engineer, we love robot design and we are hoping to satisfy the needs of the people for the desktop manipulator with the lowest cost and simplest control method. We firmly believe that multiple cooperative obots or even a production assembly line will appear on your desktop in the future as we launch a series of new models.
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Communication
If you still have other questions, you can post a comment or send an email to us: dobotinfo@gmail.com or contact us via our facebook page, we will answer you as soon as possible.
Risks & Challenges
We have spent over a year actively developing Dobot. We are manufacturing a majority of the parts in-house to limit quality control and fulfillment issues. The remaining parts are off-the-shelf components and do not require custom engineering for our application.
Precision robotic arms are difficult to manufacture and calibrate. We have spent months refining our design and automating processes to limit this difficulty.
We are finalizing the PCB layout for Dobot. Firmware for Dobot can be updated remotely. At the conclusion of this campaign we anticipate user feedback to develop a library of application specific interfaces for existing machine platforms.
Dobot is being actively developed, tested, and documented. We anticipate an extended beta testing process to fully test and release all software modules.
FAQ
What’s the power of laser head?
For safety consideration, we provide a laser head with power of 500mW. It is designed for drawing or writing on hard paper board. Our application will convert images into paths for movement of the robot arm. For other materials you may need a more powerful laser head.
What is the power tool kit?
The power tool kit includes a small electric drill and several replaceable polish heads. It can be used in applications like drilling holes in certain position and polishing specific surface repeatedly. You can see the tool kit in the main video from 1'26 to 1'29.
