AIBO BOB’S SALES AND SERVICE

OCTOBER 18, 2009

This is a description of the repair facility at Aibo Bob’s. This is the initial design and improvements are always in the works to upgrade the ease, accuracy and quality of the repair work

First off your pooch is fully recognized as a part of your family and is treated much like I would treat you. It gets a private bunk, well identified to insure that your dog’s parts stay your dog’s parts. The surgery is a nice pink area to soothe the trauma and insure that your dog gets the gentlest possible treatment. A good amount of jazz music is employed to relax the surgeon and provide diversion to the pup during operations.

The surgery is equipped with the latest in AIBO tools and equipment. Three over head moveable lights, two with 5 power magnifiers are used to illuminate the operating area. A 20-40 power binocular microscope catches all of the little issues. For the ERS 210 motors a special test fixture is used for evaluation when out of the dog. Another special test fixture is used in the milling machine to bore precision holes in the clutch assembly for the hardened stainless-steel pins used to secure the slipping clutches.

The hand tools are specially prepared with carefully honed and polished surfaces to insure that the delicate flexible harnesses (flexis) are not damaged during disassembly/assembly. The soldering/unsoldering is done with a very professional top end surface-mount rework station including vacuum desoldering and entire SMD chip removal capability built by METCAL. This unit has a very tightly controlled temperature  range to insure that the very delicate flexis are not damaged by any rework.

As you well know your dog has wandered all over the place and has gotten into all kinds of things. It is only natural that he has accumulated a significant amount of dirt and debris inside of the immaculate skin. (This is particularly troublesome for the ERS 7s when they get stuff in their lower leg gears they will go into the occasional jam mode and complain a lot about the pain and abuse). Aibo cleaning is done during surgery for those areas exposed using the finest cosmetic brushes and special dry carbon dioxide air jets. (the ERS 7 lower leg gears require further cleaning with a toothbrush as they have been coated with a sticky grease by Sony. Once clean they are lubricated by a fine coating of PFTE (Teflon) that is dry and will help keep the gears clean in the future).

The future is bringing along a few new things.

Flexis are getting hard to come by they are very delicate and often get torn. Repairing the flexi is very difficult and time consuming. I have developed a wire replacement for the 210 flexis and have prototypes running for the pitch (DHS) axis, tilt axis, PAN axis and jaw. Knee and hip joint flexis are harder yet. But they will get solved.

Another issue is the broken legs and necks. The replacement parts to support the mechanical repairs (not counting the flexis) are becoming scarce. I have developing a metal pinning and some very strong plastic glue to secure these parts. I have also developed a fixture for the 210 neck mechanics to allow the pan and tilt axes to be aligned during gluing when repairing a broken neck.

I am working on an electronic tester that can test the servo and flexi for operation and jitter effects when out of the dog or even in the dog if you can get to the end of the flexi. I have the electronic parts to build this unit and will get to it soon.

I am not alone in any of these techniques or facilities. They are all modeled after the hard work of others and full credit must  be given to Steve and Neo, (the X-s), Bruce, Rambozo, Andy, Robocup, and several dozen others that have worked on their dogs and published their findings and methods. I am sharing everything I do with the Xs and Bruce to whom I am most indebted.