From the Canyon Edge -- :-Dustin

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The Roomba Mod that Saved My Sanity


These two guys shed about 42 pounds of fur per day (it seems), and I like robots and automation, so a few weeks ago, I bought a Roomba.

Really neat...at least in principle.

However, the stock Roomba is simply incompatible with my house. 100% of the daily runs concluded prematurely with the Roomba inevitably stuck under my couch.


That sucks. And not in the vacuum cleaner sort of way that it's supposed to suck. Throw the automation out of the window if you have to un-wedge the machine from beneath your furniture every time, and it doesn't make it back to the recharging station.

Time for a bit of ingenuity...

I had unused four adhesive rubber "feet" that came with a wireless router (or something). I stuck these to the top of the Roomba sensor, adding about 2cm of additional required clearance, and poof--a working robot again!



Five days running now, and not a single wedging ;-)



:-Dustin

5 comments:

  1. just a warning :-)

    http://www.themenageriemind.com/2008/12/dog-lover-well-sort-of.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. When I first saw the conclusion I was sure it say 5 days of running and not a single wedgies.

    Thank god I re-read it made much more sense the second time :)

    Nice hack though :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was searching for roomba hacks and stumbled on to this. I also had the same problem, but i went the other way. I went to a hardware store and bought 50c of wood offcuts, and used them under each chair foot to raise my couch just high enough for the roomba to go under it cleanly :)

    ReplyDelete

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Thanks,
:-Dustin

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