We brought two Dobot M1s to HANOVER MESSE on April 24-28,2017.
Hanover
Hanover
During the exhibition, we showed the function of Pick&place with a visual system. The other one was a demonstration of assembling. We’d love to thank some backers who showed up in the fairground, they were so nice.
What’s New of Dobot M1
The Dobot M1 is a few steps away from mass production. Here’s the most recent progress:
Structure
Dobot M1’s stiffness of axes have been further improved, it will be with higher precision, heavier loading and without deforming. Not only that, the original 4th axis motor has been displaced by advanced Flat&Brushless DC Motor. This improvement can greatly reduce the inertia of axes and makes Dobot M1 look more attractive.
Driver
The self-developed driver has been put into use, which has already been showed at HANOVER MESSE within Dobot M1. The running effect of this drive is just as expected. What’s more, the matched Multi-circle Magnetic Encoder is also developed by Dobot itself.
3D graph of driver
Driver
Chip
The design of earlier mentioned A9 chip has been finished, and the testing is started from this week. Later, we will update its effect in time.
3D graph of chip
Mass-production
In regard to mass-production of Dobot M1,we will adopt OEM. And the manufacturer cooperated with us is a high-tech industry in Taiwan with a history of 37 years.
Dobot M1 will be put into production in this July, as was rescheduled in the last update. Once again we apologize for this delay, we hope for your understanding. If you want to know more information or have any questions, please write to info@dobot.cc.
We’d like to share some recent updates. There were a lot of work completed, including a refined design, supplier finding and some tests. It does take time before we have anything major and interesting to happen, and we apologize for this. Now that the hardware design is close to finish and new prototypes are on the way, it's time that we share something new.
Design
After the Kickstarter campaign, we refined Dobot M1’s design. Improvements:
4th Axis is now a servo motor and it comes along the arm.
Controller and servo motor driver are integrated, no external controller needed.
Improved rigidity with strengthened Z axis.
New design.
New design:
Dobot M1 in New Design
New interior:
Dobot M1 Interior
To those who might concern:
Now that the 4th axis comes with the arm in default, you no longer need to select or add the 4th axis as one of the toolheads. Please remember this when you fill in your survey. If you’ve already submitted your survey and selected the 4th Axis, please write to evan@dobot.cc to change your selection.
We’re still looking for parts for the 4th axis motor, in specific a thinner design. If we successfully find one, we will improve the design of the arm, and make it more similar to its original design.
Progress
We’ve done a lot of work improving design, testing and finding suppliers. There’s more work than expected but we’re going well.
Here’s a list of what's completed and what's yet to complete:
[Harmonic]
The workflow for assembling harmonic reducer and establishing its testing environment has been finalized and ready for actual production.
[Hardware]
Suppliers for core parts have been located. We planned to assemble 5 more prototypes within this week (adding up 10 prototypes) but this is postponed to early April due to delaying suppliers for Z axis screw and the slide.
What's thrilling is that we have the prototype shell ready, we'll put them up and take a photo when all the parts arrive.
[Controller]
We've shifted from Cortex M4 to a A9 chip, and we've finished designing the controller it is powering, followed by a test for this controller in late March.
[Driver]
We've come up with the beta 1 of driver design and put it to test. In mid-April we'll begin to test the beta 2.
[Software]
We're migrating what we have to adapt to the A9 framework (including a cross-platform Dobot Stuido). In terms of the ROS system, we'll have a prototype for test in late April.
Toolheads
Some backers requested in the comment section for the specs of the toolheads. We wish to have information to share, but the toolheads are just beginning to be designed and tested, after completing designing the robotic arm and its toolheads insertion port. This will be completed in the coming three weeks. We’ll share the specs as soon as we have them.
If you haven’t completed your survey, you can simply do so by the time we start producing, when all the specs of the toolheads are finalized and laid out.
Tests
First of all we have to confess that there weren’t any more application demos, for all the prototypes were occupied for tests and iteration. Meanwhile, we’re running some tests for ISO 9283:1998 (Manipulating industrial robots - Performance criteria and related test methods), a widely used standard for industrial robotic arms. The tested specifications include accuracy, repeatability, stability, accuracy drift, etc.
Harmonic reducer test
Servo motor test
Production
Dobot M1 is scheduled to be produced in July, which is two months later than what we estimated last year. We apologize for the delay and any caused trouble. Hope you understand the difficulty of making a complex machine.
Complete BOM output: 24 - 26 MAR
Mass production preparation: 21 FEB – 16 MAY
Small batch trial production: 17 – 29 MAY
Climbing validation: 30 MAY – 16 JUN
Mass production: 19 JUN – 4 JUL
Shipping: Mid July
In the end we want to remind those who haven’t completed paying the shipping fee. Please kindly pay this by the time we start shipping.
We’ll do more updates by the shipping dates. If you wish to know more have any questions, please write to info@dobot.cc or evan@dobot.cc. Thank you for backing Dobot M1!
2. Transfer the needed amount to Paypal account: dobotinfo@gmail.com, leave a message of your backer number and Kickstarter account email for our reference. We'll confirm via email within 48 hours.
The Electric Magnet toolhead
Since we reached $500K a couple of hours before the project ends, there was no time for you to catch up in such a short notice. This toolhead is unlocked anyways, so if you want to get one, you can complete the pledge via our Paypal account above, no shipping fee included.
-----------------What's next-----------------
We'll keep refining and iterating the Dobot M1, and find suppliers for all parts. We'll keep you updated frequently, and if you have any questions, you can find us by:
1. Comment or send us a message in this Kickstarer campaign.
We've also brought down shipping fee for Hong Kong & Macau, the rest remain the same. Shown as below and this link.
Dobot M1 Shipping Fee
This would be the final update regarding to the shipping fee. All backers please be sure to adjust your pledge amount accordingly by the end of the funding, otherwise there's nothing we can do but to return your pledge through private channel. We really appreciate your understanding and cooperation on this matter.
As funding's closing, we thank you all backers for your support, and wish you enjoy this amazing robotic arm in April/May!
We managed to bring down the shipping fee for US and Europe by 100 - 200 USD:
For backers in USA and Europe:
If you selected NON-EXTENSION rewards, the shipping fee listed is your final, tax-free fee.
How this works: We will ship the Dobot M1 (the robotic arm, extension kits aren't included) by ship. We will find a container and ship the products all at once to warehouses in Unites States and Europe, and then transfer and distribute to their destinations. In this way, the taxes and transferring fee are distributed to each package, bringing down the overall shipping fee.
The extension kits and mobility platform will be shipped by DHL as before, taxes aren't covered for this part.
For backers located in places other than US and Europe, we're regret to tell that the shipping fee remain the same. But we'll keep looking into bringing down the shipping fee in more areas, and will update once we do. However this will come, please remember to change your pledge amount and add the corresponding shipping fee.
Once again thank you all for backing, your patience, you understanding and all. We're honored to have your support.
