Enjoy this 20 minute video dissection of a Roomba 4000. There is lots of great information here, as [Dino] does the dirty work. It is pretty dirty too. Remember, the Roomba is a vacuum. What a pleasant way to waste 20 minutes of your morning. Part 2 is after the break.
I love my roomba and clean it out completely at least once a month. Wish I would have had this video a year ago.
@Digital,
Do you actually use it for cleaning? If so, can it replace regular vacuums and what kind of flooring do you have? Pets?
It is not necessary to hack into the motor controllers. You can just use a serial connection to connect to that external port. Look at this pdf for how to use it to control motors and read sensors. http://www.irobot.com/images/consumer/hacker/Roomba_SCI_Spec_Manual.pdf
I use it for cleaning daily. I have two cats also that shed a decent amount. Set the roomba to do it’s work on a room or two when you leave the house for work and come home to a clean floor and a charging roomba. It has a beater brush, which is more to be said for it than those 50 dollar stick vacuums, and it also has a mild sucking action to it. The suction is great because it doesn’t blow as hard as a standard vacuum, which means that it doesn’t blow cat hair across the room before it gets to it. The beaters work great on the low pile area rug that we have in the living room and it is also safe for our hardwood flooring. We use it in the kitchen with ceramic tiles and in the bedrooms with medium and high pile carpet. It doesn’t really like the high pile but it does get through it, just burns up the battery a lot faster. It cleans two rooms easily on one charge, but it takes a little over an hour, that’s why we set it to work while we are out of the house. Find one on ebay for cheap and you’re good to go. I got mine for 50 bucks and don’t regret it one bit.
@Digital, Thanks!
hmm, looks like alot of ir sensors, wonder if you could replace with visible sensors and kinda pimp your roomba.
Yay! I have one of these with a broken brush linkage. Should I repair it, or mod it into a battlebot?
I’ll be posting another video soon as I probe the pinouts on all those plugs. I’ll also document what each connector goes to and what the voltage outputs are. Look for it on the projects page of dinofab.com. :)
well done video. the dirt sensor seems to be an “acoustic impact sensor.” the piezo disk senses vibration. when lots of dirt hit it, the vibration increases and the controller signals the motherboard. i’m trying to think of a re-use for it, but i guess it would depend on what signals the controllers send to the host. i’m thinking fart detecting chair. the piezo sensors are mounted to the bottom of the chair to pick up vibrations. exceeding a set threshold triggers one of those electronic air freshener things. glade wisp i think they’re called.
Has anyone made a real life DJ Roomba yet? Like the one off parks and recreation. For those of you who haven’t seen it, they turn a Roomba into an ipod doc that plays music while it cleans your house.
Now this might be completely old news so sorry if it is. I’m do a little surfing see what I can find.
@PocketBrain – obviously you should hack it into a battlebot!
Oh wait – that was a rhetorical question – my mistake!
Anyone know where to buy the brush gears? Some sell them on ebay but the price looks to be very inflated.
-thanks
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Excellent video. You sound like Clooney.