Well, no more roomba recommendations from me

sriggins · Post by **sriggins** » May 14th, 2008, 7:21 pm

Our 550 runs every 2 days, and picks up a ton of dirt. Great!

It also needs maintenance every 2 days. The amount of cat hair that wraps on the brush spindles, under the bushings, around the gear motor, inside the gear box, etc, just makes this useless for most people.

My mom could never do this kind of maintainence, and that is exactly who a roomba should be for!

For example, ours started clacking 5 months into use. Sure enough, hair protruding from the gear box, around the white brush holder. No amount of pulling would get it out.

How - simply - craptastic. Its not like you can take the thing to the corner vacuum shop and get it repaired. No, you need to mail parts in. If they are under the 1 year warranty.

I've seen the pics of hair inside the gearbox, and it is sure what is happening to me.

A robot should be as self sufficient as possible. iRobot could design these things to let no hair/dirt in the places it gets in.

Until they do, I'll only suggest roombas to my mechanically inclined friends who like to take their vacuums apart.

fancyfreewv · Post by **fancyfreewv** » May 14th, 2008, 10:07 pm

If you only have to do maintenance every 2 days and you didn't hear clacking until after 5 months then you sure don't have the type of dirt I do!

The clacking in my case starts 20 minutes into a run on the one that has no bearing modification and unless I switch out it's brushes with my spares, will not continue it's run. I am afraid if I schedule them and leave them alone running I would end up with the melted ends that people have shown.

All this points to exactly what most of us are saying - these things are environmentally sensitive and you have to know your own home and the people and pets in it to decide if it's the correct purchase for you.

There should be some consideration in their literature, on the website or on the boxes or in the manual about all this but nothing is said and they go about selling them and replacing parts and I guess figuring if most people get a year of service they will be happy.

For most people this turns out to be a time consuming hobby or an expensive toy but for those of us willing to deal with it, it's sure a nice thing to have to keep the house looking nice and I'm very glad I have mine.

miamicanes · Post by **miamicanes** » May 15th, 2008, 12:38 am

Are any of Roomba's competitors any better? I read the reviews here, but they all kind of ended up looking like pale, inferior imitations of "the real thing".

It's too bad someone can't cobble together a robot platform with a lithium battery to run the computer & wheel motors, combined with a beefy cyclonic vacuum cleaner perched on top powered by something nice and energy-dense, like maybe a butane or propane-fired Stirling engine whose only job is to spin the impeller as hard and fast as it can (and suck up any hair that comes within 6 inches of the intake long before it has a chance to wrap itself around a roller or brush).

sriggins · Post by **sriggins** » May 15th, 2008, 1:15 am

I have not checked into any of their competitors. Bummed, too, I wanted to get one for my folks, but they would never be able to keep it maintained.

Heraklen · Post by **Heraklen** » May 15th, 2008, 2:13 am

I guess Trilobite or Siemens are the next choices for robotic vaccums that need less maintenence, but that comes at a much higher price.

THX-1138 · Post by **THX-1138** » May 15th, 2008, 2:56 am

Karcher's RC3000 is the closest to a autonomous, maintenance free floor cleaning robot. It is not cheap and it is not 100% perfect but it surely can clean your floors without much human intervention like iRobot products need.

miamicanes · Post by **miamicanes** » May 15th, 2008, 9:07 am

Well, I'm still leaning towards the 4162, 410, or 415... but if the RC3000 were a penny less than $750, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

It's too bad they don't have a model with cost-reduced charger that ditches the automatic dustbin to make a product that's closer to a compromise most of us would be happy with... a floor-cleaning robot whose only real maintenance is emptying the dustbin, with a "real" hour-long teardown cleaning maybe once per 3-6 months.

roddenshaw · Post by **roddenshaw** » May 15th, 2008, 10:27 am

The Karcher's dirt container is pretty minute, though (200ml) and the vacuum motor is rather powerful (600w), so I expect it fills up quite rapidly.

I have resolved to buy a Karcher the instant I can afford it. As cute as Roomba is, it really is too flawed to be a truly practical device (in my opinion anyway - obviously this differs depending on your circumstances).

I'll probably keep my 535 for experimenting on, that said.

sriggins · Post by **sriggins** » May 15th, 2008, 11:09 am

The Karcher got bad reviews for suction. The 600w motor is the BASE STATION motor, not the vacuums motor. The base station vacuums the vacuum

Which is cool, but they said the roomba outsucks it. Hmm, didn't come out right

roddenshaw · Post by **roddenshaw** » May 15th, 2008, 11:13 am

sriggins wrote:The Karcher got bad reviews for suction. The 600w motor is the BASE STATION motor, not the vacuums motor. The base station vacuums the vacuum

Which is cool, but they said the roomba outsucks it. Hmm, didn't come out right

Interesting... some resellers are being quite tricky in the way that they list the features of the unit in that case.

I'm not surprised that the Roomba 'outsucks' the Karcher, though, given that the vacuum port is much, much larger (unless I'm missing something). My Roomba's vacuum port has started clogging constantly, even though it runs every day, I have hard floors, no pets, don't live in a dusty area, etc...

blackberry-rum · Post by **blackberry-rum** » May 15th, 2008, 4:58 pm

Hello! I've only had my darling Roomba 3 months (I used part of my first *ahem* old age pension to pay for it) and have just discovered the forums here whilst browsing for extra virtual walls. So this is my first post and I hope you don't mind me butting in.

Anyway, I'm just wondering how old all your old folks are, that you don't think could cope with maintenance of the Roomba? I'm 60 (outside; 25 inside) and actually enjoy the dehairing and defluffing of my new baby, it's on a par with picking fleas off the cats and cleaning their ears. Ok I know I'm strange.

Still haven't found any extra virtual walls but I can look for them another day, I'd far rather chat

sriggins · Post by **sriggins** » May 15th, 2008, 5:36 pm

I'm not sure how much it is age vs knowing my folks

And what now needs to be done is a swap of the gear box, or opening it up and cleaning greased gears out whilst voiding the warranty.

miamicanes · Post by **miamicanes** » May 15th, 2008, 9:26 pm

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but in my case it's not a case of technical difficulty (I'm a software engineer who's dabbled in robots and microcontrollers) or age (35), but rather an aversion to cleaning and manual labor in general. I'm delighted when my house is spotlessly clean, but I couldn't keep it that way for any length of time if my life depended on it. My usual cleaning workflow is:

* Run a load of dishes every few days. Once or twice a day, clear out the dirty dishes from my computer room and living room and move them to the sink. Sweep occasionally, usually creating piles of dirt with the intention of vacuuming them up with a hand vac, but getting distracted and forgetting ~80% of the time. Once in a blue moon, vacuum the carpet and wash the tile floors with a Eureka steam mop.

* Move floor clutter into piles every few days.

* When the piles are too big, or the level of dust/dirt exceeds my tolerance threshold, spend a day or two cleaning the house. Get burned out and become ambivalent about it for another few weeks or so. Stir, rinse, and repeat.

* Every two or three years, clean one or two rooms "for real", moving furniture and cleaning behind/under it, throwing things out, etc. This takes about a week, and leaves me so burned out I'm in no mood to do it again for... two or three years.

Now that I finally have a real house all to myself, I've been able to eliminate the worst of the clutter that used to plague me and my floors by dedicating one of the bedrooms as a storage room, sacrificing it completely so the rest of the house can be relatively devoid of junk. The thing is, now that the floors are no longer hidden below 2 feet of books and computer hardware, I actually notice that they aren't very clean on a regular basis. Ergo, my enthusiasm for getting a robotic floor cleaner that makes minimal demands on my time, but can give me a reasonably clean floor almost daily. It's not a matter of trading an hour per week of vacuuming and floor-scrubbing for an hour of robot maintenance, because I don't even spend that much time on floor-cleaning tasks NOW

richnorto · Post by **richnorto** » May 15th, 2008, 9:56 pm

Miamicanes,
I think, if the clutter is no longer a part of the living space floor, then a 4xxx scheduler is the perfect pet! Set the schedule every other day or 3? and let that take care of any dust that may come! You will need to dump the dust pan and shake the filter every week, but I haven't seen dust felt build up on the 4xxx brushes like I have on the 5xx. Other than that, keep a can of air to blow out sensors, clean the brush end bushings and if it acts up, keep an eye on this board so you can diagnose any problem and fix it easily. I'm not an engineer and have handled everything but the dead charging roomba - I bought a separate charger and worked around that board/soldering issue.
Best of luck and Welcome!
Lauralie

fancyfreewv · Post by **fancyfreewv** » May 15th, 2008, 10:22 pm

Miamicanes, from the sounds of it, you'll need a few robot vacuums, a dirt dog and a scooba to keep the place in order!

Either that or a maid/butler/better half that loves to do housework.

richnorto · Post by **richnorto** » May 15th, 2008, 11:35 pm

Now Nancy, In order to feed the addiction... he needs to start slow. Give it a couple months!

miamicanes · Post by **miamicanes** » May 16th, 2008, 12:06 am

All kidding aside, I HAVE been peeking at some of the "junk" robotic cleaners that are basically a stripped-down ghetto-fabulous gen-1 Roomba with static cloth, on the theory that it just might be worthwhile to get one in addition to a 4xxx-series Roomba and let it run an hour before the Roomba.

Why? The hair/fur problem. Static cloths are grossly over-rated for floor cleaning, but they DO seem to be pretty good at picking up hair. If a hundred bucks for a junkbot faux-Roomba that can't do much besides pick up hair meant I could go for days (weeks?) without brush-cleaning, well... that might be worth considering.

Then again, I had another inspiration this afternoon on the way home from work... disposable latex-dipped Q-tips mounted as a second rotating brush. They'd cost almost nothing if iRobot sold them in packs with a hundred or so. They could be mounted at the very front of the Roomba as kind of a sacrificial rotating beater bar whose entire purpose IS to get hair tangled up and wrapped around their shafts as they rotate... keeping that hair safely away from the "real" brush, wheels, and remainder of the Roomba. After each mission, just rip it out, toss it in the trash, and mount a new one. And rework the vacuum's exhaust vent so it blows air directly into the gearbox and wheel wells. If hurricane-force winds are blowing out of every mechanical orfice, dust and hair WON'T be getting inside to cause problems

richnorto · Post by **richnorto** » May 16th, 2008, 12:33 am

You are getting way beyond what seems needed for your environment. I have 5xxs and 4xxxs I run in my home and even under the worst circumstances here, I've had few problems. Kids rooms with 6 months of dust/hair build up ("you ARE going to clean your OWN room"), some dog (lab) hair on berber - 4xxx area - and YES (don't tell) even the pollen covered porch! The 5xx have a few minor issues still being worked out and the 4xxx aren't perfect, but it sure beats doing it myself! Minor maintainace should get you by till you start buying "broken bots" off Ebay like some of us! Then the fun begins!

puppymom · Post by **puppymom** » May 16th, 2008, 7:28 pm

I've gotta tell you that in my experience the 4xxx is very forgiving when it comes to maintenance. I bought one for my (75 yr old) mom to use in her 2000 sf home with wall to wall carpet and a long haired dog. The brush/filter disassembly was a bit much for her so I told her to just dump the dust bin and put it back on the charger. About once a month when I visited I cleaned the brushes (which were usually so full of hair you initially couldn't tell there was a brush there) and cleaned and washed the filter and blew the crud out of the various nooks and crannies. I never fully disassembled and cleaned the machine ala the instructions here. Despite the abject neglect, that little Disco lasted a bit more than two years. The way I see it, for $100 or so a year Mom's not fighting with the Hoover.

My first 4xxx will be two years old next month. It is working better than ever (with the recent addition of a LIon battery). I'm in 2400sf with a combo of 2/3 carpet and 1/3 tile. We have a short haired dog, but I have shoulder length hair and I shed year round. Again, I have never done a complete tear down on this machine. After each run I empty the dust bin, bang the filter against the side of the waste basked and run the tool over the brush if it seems particularly hairy (takes less than two minutes). Once every few weeks I use the DustBuster to suck the crud out of the nooks and crannys, pull the little yellow bearings off and clean under them and thoroughly de-hair the brushes (five minutes tops).

I love my Roomba so much I just bought two more so I don't have to carry her up and down stairs (we're on three levels). I also own a Scooba I couldn't live without and a Dirt Dog that is surprisingly useful.

I no longer own any traditional home vacuums nor even a mop. My robots, the dustbuster and the shop vac handle it all.

I'm sure my bots won't last as long as others' do, but I'm like you...I want the clean with the least possible amount of work. I have lots of other things to do!

fancyfreewv · Post by **fancyfreewv** » May 16th, 2008, 8:56 pm

puppymom wrote:Once every few weeks I use the DustBuster to suck the crud out of the nooks and crannys, pull the little yellow bearings off and clean under them and thoroughly de-hair the brushes (five minutes tops).

I have to laugh at this because when I take out the brushes on mine 1/2 way through a run, the little yellow end bearings just SPROING out due to the curled up Sheltie hair under there. They would never last a few weeks (nor did they with my previous 4xxx model) or even one week in my environment.

This is why we really can't answer new people's questions about how much maintenance etc because the environment they are used in is so different for all of us.

Glad you have so little work with yours. My sister is alone no pets in a 2 br apartment and runs hers once a week and never deep cleans it. Different strokes.