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[taoworm23]

So I have talked to several of the people who developed the ugobe pleo and they said they used cheap motors in the pleos to save money.
Now this causes noise as does the design of the gears system. But the gears are actually designed fairly well.
I am disassembling one of my pleos to replace all motors with more expensive quieter ones.
I will post my progress here.

[Talon]

Cool! Good luck with your project. I'd be interested in taking a listen to your end product once you're finished.
Talon

[kat]

oooh how exciting   would love to see photos or video of the actual process.  Some of us here have completed minor repairs to our pleos and a few of us major ones which has allowed us to put together instructional photo guides and video tutorials for some common repair issues.  We are always looking for instruction guides or how to's for anything pleo repair or upgrade wise.  Anything you share will be treasured  
What kind of motors are you planning on using and where are you buying them from?  If you have success with this it is something i would be interested in trying on one of my guys.

[Crewella]

Me too!

[taoworm23]

The original ugobe prototype had metal gears through his body.
This turned out to be quite noisy. 
So they replaced the gears using nylon ones and that reduced the noise greatly BUT instead of upgrading the motors for the final prototype as well they never did because they where trying to save costs at that point wherever they could.

I heard through press releases that Inivo had upgraded the motors to be stronger in the Pleo RBs but I somewhat doubt that. Can anyone who owns a Pleo Rb and a Ugobe pleo confirm that the motors sounds are the same in both?
(I only have ugobe versions since the RB tends to freeze/stop for a moment between animations whereas the ugobe ones running 1.0 is smooth with no freezes inbetween "animations".  Thus seeming much more lifelike.
(I only run 1.0 since even the updates to the ugobe pleo also introduced this pause in between animations that take away from the lifelike animatronic nature of pleo. )

Adding quieter motors while running the ugobe pleo in its default sent from factory personality will result in a MUCH more life like representation of what Caleb Chung envisioned when he created Pleo.

[kat]

I have both and they sound the same as far as motor noise goes. If anything I would say my rb's are noisier than my Ugobes.

[JakeLBell]

Taoworm, I recent purchased my very first pleo rb and I have started noticing the freezing between animations. At first I thought it might be an issue with the software. I didn't know it was common. Is there a way to run 1.0 on a new rb? What is the difference between the two OS's?

[taoworm23]

Taoworm, I recent purchased my very first pleo rb and I have started noticing the freezing between animations. At first I thought it might be an issue with the software. I didn't know it was common. Is there a way to run 1.0 on a new rb?

No, there is no way to do that unless you buy a Ugobe brand Pleo (new in box) or buy a used ugobe pleo from ebay and retrograde its OS to 1.0.

What is the difference between the two OS's?

Quite alot.  PLEO RB is much more capable (More tricks, refinements, activity, etc) than PLEO 1.0, which is expected. This said, with more PLEO capability comes more "stutters".  PLEO RB seems to be a bit more high strung to me, as such, this alters PLEO's personality. PLEO RB seems more "Dog Like". I'm not sure I like this move, I think many people see him as like a little dog (A lethargic Ugobe Dino would get old quick), making him too dog like though takes the fun out of having a baby dinosaur. Even upgrades to the ugobe os introduced this dog like freezing behaviour.  PLEO 1.1 seemed to sniff much more, he would sit like a dog, he growled like a dog, it's cute and all, however, not sure this is where PLEO should be taken. I say let the SONY AIBO people have their dogs!
The first Ugobe pleo with default OS is the best in my opinion because the treated it like an animatronic movie prop and it shows. (The later incarnations could do "tricks" but lost the life like charm.)
It just depends on what's more important to you.
As a 35 year old male robot enthusiast I prefer the first OS that shipped with the Ugobe version of Pleo and not the later "upgrades".
So the choice is yours...

I will end this post with a quote from one of our forum members who summed it up pretty well in another thread...

I think the Ugobes still have a very nice charm (and even "magic") to them, even if they aren't "unique." If you do decide to replace yours and want to keep a similar personality, you should figure out which operating system he has so you can upgrade/downgrade the replacement to the same one. If you decide on the newer model, the Pleo RBs each come with different set personalities and I believe there are quite a few different personality variants you can get, so there is a bit of distinction in personality among the RBs. I don't believe the RB actually changes its personality depending on how you treat it in the long term (someone can correct me on this if I'm wrong), but it can get sick, hurt, upset, etc. very easily depending on how it's treated and what/how much it's fed and these moods can last a long amount of time (when my RB, Chris, got sick, it took him about six hours of runtime to recover). If you are interested in a different robot that more closely exhibits the type of "learning" mentioned in your first post, all Aibo models except the ERS-7s do form distinctly different personalities as they're growing up depending on how they are treated (but they're not as cuddly as Pleos and are more expensive).

[kat]

JakeLBell - just to make sure it is clear, the Ugobe OS's are not compatible with the Pleo RB and if you try to load one onto your pleo RB it will break your pleo.  Your pleo RB is running the newest version of software available for pleo rb's so there is no need to upgrade his/her OS. 
I would hate for you to accidentally break your new little dino.  This has happened so many times before to new owners and is a real hassle to try to fix and the fixing doesn't always work.

Ok so warning given   The cutting out of noises and freezing behaviours of your pleo rb should disappear with age. Once he/she reaches adult stage - is walking and exploring the environment around them and has run at least 3 full battery cycles in this stage you should notice that these issues happen much less frequently or are gone altogether.  They are both common issues many of us have experienced with our pleo RB's and are generally nothing to worry about.