Copycat Arts

I bought my roomba from Frys in Los Angles and bring it all the way back to China at 2008-09-28.  It's a "Made in China" product but it’s impossible to buy it in China, since the factory located  in a tax free/export only district.

During one and half years of use, my Roomba 560 failed a few times however I finally make the dead roomba back to life again. Here is the experience I'd like to share with you.

To test your Roomba function with service manual

It's the best way to know what fails and test you roomba is put it into service mode. You could download and read the service manual here: 5xx Series Roomba Service Manual

For example, to test bumper, put roomba to service mode, move to function 3, and press each side of bumpers to see if it works.

Bumper Sensor Fails – Running  in backward/spin and stop with 9 beeps

Roomba use IRED(infrared led) detect bump arm movement.  There are two small arms behind bumper, when roomba run into something, bumper fall back push one arm.  That's how the switch works.

And from this picture  you can see that the bump sensor at this side is quite close to a cluster of power supply triode. When roomba is running the temperature of this area will be higher than normal. Well, under such high temperature environment IRED degrade in a much higher rate.

(2010-1-8: few days after I wrote this article, the other bump sensor in left malfunctioned... anyway I fixed it with new IRED and hopefully it could run for another year. )

I know some people tried to "fix" this issue by modify mother board, but I do not agree with that. In China we believe “Whoever started the trouble should end it.” . And yes I agree that new diode pair will also fails after one or two years, but  it’s fare and long enough for roomba, in the end of day it’s just a cleaning toy but not appliance.

To fix detector is simply but it requires some circuit skills. First buy a replacement of set emitter-detector. I bought a few ST150 from  www.taobao.com , it's the real ebay for Chinese.  Each ST150 cost 1.45RMB , that’s 21 cents in US plus also 10 cents for shipment .  I disassembled black plastic box in order to get IRED pair.

Replace IRED pair to roomba:

Put circuit into bump  sensor shell:

Some frontiers also use Honeywell SEP8706-003 or HOA0890-L51 as replacement (also in this post):

Hi, I just successfully replaced the LED and emitter by using Honeywell HOA0890-L51.

The defective sensor emitter given the voltage 1.2VDC while unblock and 5VDC while block.

For normal sensor is given voltage 0VDC while unblock and 5VC whilte block.

It need some skill to redo the solder from the PCB.

Hope it is helpful for you.

http://pdfs.datasheetdirect.com/view/30 ... 90-L51.png

Other minor issues:

Roomba fails to move forward but spin in one direction, only one wheel functional

This is a easy one. Just put your roomba on a rough surface, power on roomba make it running(spin), and then manually push it forward few inches, it should works fine again.

Because roomba's wheel is driven by DC motor, there are two carbon brushes transmit power to internal commutation, the current will be cut if there are dust or fur. Or there may be shortcut between brushes. Manual push will help with dust/fur issue and also gives the roomba CPU a signal of motor still functional.

Yes, the roomba computer is quite smart one and it will detect many thing including shortcut or disconnection of all motors. Unless the feedback from motor is all right or computer will cut power to that wheel immediately.

CHM modification

I also did this few month after purchase.  It's a quite classic mod by famous http://vic7767.com/ . If you have cats of dogs you definitely need this mod.

But it's not that easy and requires certain tools to do so, just think twice before you start.

At the last, many thanks to www.roombareview.com , I learn most tricks from these talent people.

This entry was posted on 星期四, 十二月 31st, 2009 at 23:39 and is filed under 家电. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.