Ezb V4 And Roboquad

Question

Has anyone found a way to work around the limitations of the EZB V4 with the Roboquad or any robosapien? Its sad that the support was dropped with the EZB V4. I was pumped to make an uber intelligent wifi based Roboquad - but will not work.

DJ Sures · Answer

There are too many hardware revisions of the toy robots that you mentioned. Wowwee toy robots were not standardized and the pcb, protocols, and wiring schematics of those toys changed numerous times throughout their lifetime. This made supporting those robots absolutely impossible - due to the lack of documentation of hardware revisions. Your posts are responded too every time you bring this subject up - as much as you're upset that those toys are no longer supported, you must accept that it is entirely impossible as the reasons stated above, on their respective pages on this site, and in my previous responses.

DJ Sures · Answer

If you modify this arduino sketch and use an arduino IR board, connecting it to the ezb's UART to receive commands will simulate the robosapien remote control and send the data over IR, rather than trying to emulate the signal like I was originally attempting to do with the v3. https://daverobertson63.wordpress.com/2013/05/05/updated-robosapien-ir-control-arduino/

MarkTheBotBldr · Answer

DJ, Thanks for replying. My roboquad worked great with the v3. It seems you could offer the same code you had before "as is" with no guarantee to users. I applaud all you've done. It's truly amazing. If I connect an arduino as you mentioned how would I get the ARC to recognize that a roboquad is on the other end?

leversofpower · Answer

I've got a robo quad that works with ARC I'll sell you for 30 usd. It's pre-wired, per the tutorial.

MarkTheBotBldr · Answer

I have one too that works great with EZB V3. But it does not work with V4.

mtwannabe · Answer

If you still have this and can part with it...I'll take it? Just let me know... @leversofpower Quote: I've got a robo quad that works with ARC I'll sell you for 30 usd. It's pre-wired, per the tutorial.

MarkTheBotBldr · Answer

Wish it worked with EZ-B 4....sigh.

andriodrobo · Answer

I just bought another EZB V4 with the idea of integrating it on to my RoboQuad. I am very disappointed to learn that this is not compatible with the EZB V4. I have purchased two EZB 3 developer kits, two rollies (one for me and one for work prototyping), and two additional EZ V4s (one for me and one for work prototyping)along with other sensors, etc from you. A lot of $$ spent.

DJ Sures · Answer

This ability to connect to wowee toys was discontinued with the ezb v3 five years ago in 2012. There is no information available regarding ezrobot and woweee that claims support.

ptp · Answer

Quote:
My roboquad worked great with the v3. It seems you could offer the same code you had before "as is" with no guarantee to users.

DJ didn't answered the question, and the answer can bring some light to the discussion.

The RobotQuad, RoboSapien features are supported through EZB 3 firmware, they are not inside ARC, so is not a question to enable the same features with EZB 4 controller.

From a firmware hardware perspective: EZB v3 is a PIC EZB v4 is a Arm Cortex M3

currently there isn't a simple procedure to update the EZB V4 firmware to support new features or deprecated features.

Although is possible to develop an ARC skill plugin to support the robot, the main question is: where's the motivation (e.g. money) to support a deprecated toy ?

@DJ please correct if i'm wrong.

thetechguru · Answer

From DJ's first reply in this thread:

Quote:
There are too many hardware revisions of the toy robots that you mentioned. Wowwee toy robots were not standardized and the pcb, protocols, and wiring schematics of those toys changed numerous times throughout their lifetime. This made supporting those robots absolutely impossible - due to the lack of documentation of hardware revisions.

Alan

mtwannabe · Answer

Not that my friend is a very logical explanation and I thank you for the answer as it really did answer the question without just saying, "not supported". If I could report points I would.

@ptp Thank you very much!

Quote:
DJ didn't answered the question, and the answer can bring some light to the discussion.

The RobotQuad, RoboSapien features are supported through EZB 3 firmware, they are not inside ARC, so is not a question to enable the same features with EZB 4 controller.

From a firmware hardware perspective: EZB v3 is a PIC EZB v4 is a Arm Cortex M3

currently there isn't a simple procedure to update the EZB V4 firmware to support new features or deprecated features.

Although is possible to develop an ARC skill plugin to support the robot, the main question is: where's the motivation (e.g. money) to support a deprecated toy ?

@DJ please correct if i'm wrong.

MarkTheBotBldr

Upgrade to ARC Pro

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