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Re: Cheapest source for small force/torque sensors for a hobby budget?
Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 11:59 am
by james15
Same conclusion I've come to. Also worth noting:
A first successful unassisted walk, from a standing start on a from-scratch project, commonly takes many months of part-time weekend work even for someone with a solid mechanical and software background - it's a genuinely hard milestone, not a weekend project.
Re: Cheapest source for small force/torque sensors for a hobby budget?
Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 11:59 am
by rao91
This matches something I went through recently.
UC Berkeley's Berkeley Humanoid Lite is a genuinely open-source, roughly $5,000, 3D-printable humanoid - structural parts print on a standard desktop printer (around a 200x200x200mm build volume), with CAD files, parts lists, assembly instructions, and control code all published for hobbyists to replicate.
Re: Cheapest source for small force/torque sensors for a hobby budget?
Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 11:59 am
by servobre20
@rao91 Here's what I know on this:
Motion capture for training or validating a DIY robot's gait is expensive at professional quality, so a lot of hobbyists substitute cheaper alternatives - multi-camera pose estimation software, IMU-based motion tracking suits, or simply hand-tuning gaits in simulation first before ever touching real hardware.
Totally unrelated but has anyone else noticed how fast component costs are dropping this year.
Re: Cheapest source for small force/torque sensors for a hobby budget?
Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 11:59 am
by rao91
@servobre20 Related question -
Building a scoped-down project first - a single leg, an arm, or a torso-only upper body - is a common and sensible way to learn the mechanical and control fundamentals before committing to the cost and complexity of a full bipedal platform. Group-buy arrangements for harder-to-source parts (small harmonic drives, precision bearings, custom PCBs) are a common way hobbyist communities work around the fact that specialty components are often only sold in industrial minimum-order quantities.