Year with Roomba

About a year ago I had the opportunity to become the happy owner of iRobot Roomba 564 pet, since then it regularly carries combat duty in the open spaces of our 4-room apartment according to the scheme: 4 times a week (minimum). The other day, my hands finally got to him, I decided to thoroughly clean the "fighter for cleanliness", and at the same time hold a photo session and tell Habra about some of the features of the service of this beast.
I hope that the topic will help you choose the best for yourself robot vacuum cleaner, and I will do my best to tell you which pitfalls await you in Roomba vacuum cleaners.

Caution!
Under the cut there are a lot of photos of the disassembled vacuum cleaner, wool and a bit of fused plastic.

Purchase history

About four years ago, my wife began to systematically terrorize me on the topic: "Let's take a puppy." I have been wandering for a long time, although I myself love dogs, only one thing stopped me - studies. We both studied at the university at that time and worked, sometimes there was no time left for the animal, for personal life. In the end, I promised that when she finishes her studies, we will get a dog. And so it happened, and in 2009 we bought a dog, took a golden retriever puppy, a boy, and called it “Elvis.”


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The first year with the dog went as we expected, with a variety of dog kooky: "Bitten furniture, bitten legs, mines, wet floor and periodic molting." The symptoms of puppy age have passed with time, but here the molt ... she, how could I explain this to you - became PERMANENT !!! For three days without a vacuum cleaner, the tumbleweed made of wool moved around the apartment, the space under the entrance door began to warm itself, and artificial drifts made of wool under the sofas. Carrying an old vacuum cleaner through the apartment every other day, frankly, is a bit annoying! And We decided to make our lives easier. At first it was thought in the direction of Scooba, but a representative of iRobot, having heard about dog hair, vigorously waved his hands and said that only the special Roomba series for animals would cope with IT. On that and decided.

Some niceties and tips

After receiving the vacuum cleaner, I put it on charge for a day, as instructed by the instruction.
The next day, we removed everything from the floor, stuck one of the two dust collectors that came in the kit, and started driving around the apartment. It should be noted that we had not specially cleaned for three days before that, to heighten the WOW effect. The vacuum cleaner drove around the apartment for half an hour, intimidating our four-legged pet and squeezing under the bed, then reported a clogged dust collector. Slightly holding a grudge against iRobot, I shook the wool out of the garbage can, cleaned the wool from the brushes and started it again. After 20 minutes, the piece of iron got up again and started screaming about the pollution of the tank. He shook out, cleaned, swagged and went to extreme measures - opened the instructions. As it turned out, I stuck the wrong dust collector. I used a dust collector for everyday cleaning, and I needed it for wool. The next day, we turned on the vacuum cleaner with the “right cistern” and he drove around the apartment for about 2 hours, writing out funny pirouettes and imprinting on various furniture, the dog tried to hunt for him, but quickly lost interest and began to fade from the “fearless buzzing beast "On the sofa, so that he would not bother. At this time the tank for wool was packed to capacity, and the brushes had a resistant felt coating, I cut it off with stupid scissors. Here and there around the apartment, we still found some wool, mainly in the corners and places where the robot does not get. But it was in the open and it was annoying! But during the subsequent operation, I realized what the problem was. The fact is that as soon as the dust collector is filled with wool, especially if it is long (5 cm or more), the vacuum cleaner starts to wind it on the main brush and after a while it simply cannot collect wool from the floor.
From all of the above, I outlined several rules for myself.

1. Use the correct dust bag.
If you need the perfect floor, almost like after a wet cleaning - use a regular dust collector. But only after the vacuum cleaner has walked with a tank for wool, otherwise you will be bothered to clean.

2. You need to get out often.
In our case, every day, as a last resort, every other day. Then the wool on the brushes is not much and the rollers are not erased.

3. Theoretically, the robot is able to get out of one or two wires, in fact this is true by 60%, the fact is that the principle of “pulling out of the wire” only works for the side brush. Therefore, do not leave the wires on the floor, especially thin.
Once iRobot, I wound a wire from the Galaxy Ace charging on the main roller, the wire, I must say, was thin, in the end, the wire broke.

4. Lift up important, and in general things from the floor before cleaning (he collected the SD card from me like that).

5. If there is furniture that is just below the rumba, it is better to isolate it with a virtual wall. Here the matter is that the optical sensors of the wall near the vacuum cleaner are not on the upper edge of the vacuum cleaner, but almost in the middle, therefore, when the rumba moves along the low furniture, it always strives to climb under it. Sometimes he does it, he gets stuck and you have to release and restart it. Fortunately, this place we have only one.

6. The base vacuum cleaner can search for a very long time, since it determines it not using radio frequencies, but using an infrared sensor. Therefore, try to install the base in an easily accessible and open place.

These are, perhaps, the basic rules when working with a vacuum cleaner.

Clean rumba

The cleaning process itself takes on average no more than 5 minutes, for this we need to take the following steps:

1. We put Roomba to up with paws.



2. Remove the dust bag and shake out the contents in the trash.



3. Open the brush compartment, for this you need to press two yellow latches (they can be seen on the top photo, one is broken because the valiant mother-in-law tried to clean the vacuum cleaner itself (Luba - hello!)). And extract the brushes themselves.



By the way, I have never changed them, although there are spare ones in the kit.

4. We remove from them pile and clean bearing niches.



The black inside the niche is molten plastic. Hair is wound on the axis between the bearing and the niche; the more it is wound, the stronger the bearing puts pressure on the brush. And it still rotates, in short, you can kill a brush or a block of brushes for 10 cleanings, if not follow.

5. Turn off the side brush and remove the wool from under it. I must admit that this and the following procedure is required no more than once every four to five cleanups.



6. Remove the front wheel, just pull up.



There will have to push the axle out of the wheel, because there is also going to pile, thereby complicating its rotation.

Actually and everything, we collect the rumba in the reverse order and return to the base.

Dissect Roomba

For this we need:
1. Phillips screwdrivers, different sizes.
2. Plastic spatula for disassembling phones.
3. About an hour of time.

Let's get started!

1. Turn off 4 bolts and remove the bottom cover.



There is a battery waiting for us:



Ni-MH at 3 Ah, 14.4V



As well as access to the brush unit:



2. Four more bolts, and the brush unit is removed (marked on top).



1. Brush drive connector. 2. Wheel and belt tension. 3. Brush drive itself.
4. Pollution sensor (I would be grateful if someone will tell you how it works)

3. Closed brush drive unit.



And open.



Some pollution is visible, but the lubricant is still fresh. Given the lifetime is quite good.
Wiped the gears, smeared with petroleum jelly and closed it back.

4. Pry off the top cover with a plastic spatula and snap off the mount.



5. Remove the bumper, unscrewing the 8 bolts in its lower part and carefully remove it, the infrared receiver is also located in the turret (it is fastened with two bolts). It serves to determine the virtual walls, base and IR remote.



In the bumper there is an embrasure of dark, translucent plastic, for 6 optocouplers. They are used to identify objects and walls, as well as to search for the base.



Front end without bumper.



Next in color:
* red - IR receiver.
* light green - optocouplers for navigation.
* blue - 4 height sensors, also performed by optocouplers.
* Purple - bumper dampers.
* yellow - limit switches, to determine the side of the collision.

6. The upper part of the robot, without the main cover.



10 more bolts for access to the board (red) and a programming connector (green).

7. Turn off the bolts, and only the control unit separates us from the robot's brain.



8. Two more bolts under the main film of the control unit and we are on target.



Here we see the absolute salad of a huge number of resistances, diodes, transistors, comparators, converters, ice, buttons, conductors, etc.

For those who want to see a closer look at the full format, however, the trick has failed everywhere:


9. And again 4 bolts ...



* red - battery contacts.
* light green - managing controller from STM, by the way it looks like this is a special revision for iRobot, since I did not find a datasheet on it, and at the end of the model number the letters "IRO" appear. Here , you can look datasheet for this series of microns.
* blue - wheel connectors.
* yellow - side brush connector.
Well, at the bottom of the power part of the motor control, of which there are five pieces.



10. Well, under the board, the frame of the vacuum cleaner.



It should be noted quite clean, with a dozen hairs inside and everything.

All parts together.



Putting it in the reverse order.

Epilogue

I can frankly say - Roomba is worth its money and works it out in full. All recommendations are absolutely true only for our, separately taken apartment, and its inhabitants, from you it can vary depending on the area, presence of pets and other factors.
Chassis, side brush and turbine dust collector, I did not disassemble, because there is not much to look at that, only the motors.
I also note that for all the time of operation I have never changed a single spare part and did not resort to the help of a service center.
Finally, I am in no way affiliated with iRobot or other companies in the industry.

PS:
1. The text may contain punctuation, grammatical and semantic errors, please report them to the PM.
2. Thoughts, ideas, questions, technical amendments - on the contrary, are welcome in the comments.
3. I apologize for any technical inaccuracies.

Thank you for your attention, Good luck and inexhaustible optimism!