I’ve managed to throw the legs and body of the DOG-001 together and managed not to blow up any servos when it powered up.

The biggest problem with the kit so far has been the need to "hack" 5 of the 15 servos to make them fit in the available body/head cavities.

As I indicated, the length of the body is less than 25 cm (and now that I have my tape-measure out, nearer 18 cm :} ).

If you’re into kit hacking then servo hacking is pretty standard. Need a geared-up motor? Don’t buy a real motor, gears and frame, get a servo and cut off the end stopper(s) and decouple the potentiometer. Saves anout $10 AUD per unit.

In this JM kit the servos (pretty fast and hi-power, BTW) all came with a mid-axle T-bar. This had to be removed to get those things to fit in the provided space. If you like opening up small boxes full of grease and playing with 5 x 5mm-15mm plastic gears, then this is the career move for you!

(The Japochinesian-to-English photocopied manual only indicates the servos are made by Vigor; there are no markings or even brand stickers on the units themselves, presumably because they sit out in the open air as dog-legs. But here’s a Googled ref that seems to be them).

Have been hunting around the net for info about the kit, and the what-I-thought was Japanese company actually points over to S China and a 20Kb server.

I knew the kit was old — I’ve since seen JM-DG-1100 kits which seem to supercede (and looking at the PCBs in the 001 you can see where these’s making for ears, eyes, and some extra touch sensors). But on the web site (you start at http://www.robotplayer.com/ as per warranty card but then are led to http://www.robotexp.com/ which seems to be in Guandong) there is no mention of any dog or hexapod or smart arm (all documented on the box I’ve got the doggie in). Don’t know if these other kits are newer than the site, or whether they’ve backed out of some of these kits as being too unpopular.

Joinmax is looking for O/S distributors, BTW. They seem to be heavily into motors and sensors of various kinds.