Dobot CR Series Review

What’s the story behind Dobot cobots ?

In 2015, Chinese engineer Jerry Liu founded Shenzhen Yuejiang Technology Co., Ltd. with 6 of his classmates, to create their own innovative robotic models. 

Realizing the competition on the market, they worked on a small-scale robot prototype and launched their first Kickstarter-funded desktop robotic arm, Dobot. 

Thanks to multiple marketing buzz, the Dobot brand grew and attracted a lot of funds, becoming one of the most valuable Chinese robotic companies. Their first robotic series aimed at automating household tasks like object picking, writing, or 3D printing.

In 2019, they put their first industrial-aimed robot model to the market, the CR series. With a compact and lightweight design, they sought to appeal to SMEs looking for space-saving, low-cost, and user-friendly automation solutions. The CR Series soon became one of the most complete robotic series, ranging from 500g to 16 kg payload.

The CR series well embody the Dobot compact philosophy, but what makes the strongest selling points of these robotic models?

How to use Dobot CR models ?

First thing first, you need to set up your base controller and robot arm, plugging every power and communication connector. You can then download and install DobotSCStudio on your computer, and connect it to your robot’s IP. 

On this interface, you can activate your robot, type your end load settings and calibrate your end-effector attached. You can also check the safety features and monitor your I/O signals. On the jog panel, you can manually rotate your robot axis, while on the Blocky section you can code your work paths. 

To start programming, you can save different positions and rotation points via hand-guiding or the Job panel. You can then use those saving points on your movement blocks to define your robot’s waypoints. To refine your code, you can add sleep blocks to add delay between every movement, logical blocks (if, then, variables) to refine your code, and end-effector blocs to turn on your effector.

When you’re finished, you can test the program by clicking on run. If the result works for you, you can save it and run it on a loop. 

What are the common applications of the Dobot CRs ?

Thanks to a rich accessory ecosystem, Dobot CR models support a wide range of applications :

• Pick & Place
• Assembly
• CNC and machine tending
• Dispensing 
• Finishing
• Screw driving
• Injection Molding
• Quality Inspection

What to make of Dobot cobot user experience?

Dobot CR cobots achieve to bring unique value to the cobotic market, for 3 reasons.

First, their safety features are one of the most innovative brought to the cobotic world. Dobot Safe skin technology enables pre-collision stopping mode, at low, medium, and high-speed thanks to electromagnetic inference. So your workers don’t have to worry about the safety features and can focus on their work.

As the second selling point, Dobot’s open ecosystem is huge and delivers many hardware innovations and software improvements. It provides plug-and-play of various robot accessories, such as grippers, vision systems, and force sensors. The secondary development is compatible with over 20 development platforms that fit the vast range of accessories. Machine learning technology like trajectory tracking and transfer learning algorithms makes Dobot a forward-thinking company. 

Finally, the user experience is enough to run a program in 1 hour when you know how to do it. In this respect, it’s more the easy-to-access interface and smooth end-effector use that deserve a mention.