Difference between revisions of "Disassembling a Roomba 560"

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This element is more complex than it is immediately apparent.
 
This element is more complex than it is immediately apparent.
 
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Image:Roomba_9 | By separating the elements of the brush housing, its contents become visible. The housing also hosts the two motors used for brush rotation and to lift all the housing when needed (e.g., the robot is on a thick carpet) and the gear reduction for the former.  
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Image:Roomba_9.JPG | By separating the elements of the brush housing, its contents become visible. Separation is obtained by flexing the two plastic arms seen on the top of the image, so that the two metal pins at their extremities come out of the corresponding holes in the blue part of the housing. As such holes pass through the blue element, the flexing is easily done by inserting a tool from the other end of the hole.
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Image:Roomba_10.JPG | The housing two motors: one is used for brush rotation, while and the other lifts the whole brush higher from the ground when needed (e.g., the robot is on a thick carpet). The motors are mounted back-to-back: the brush motor is on the right. The right (thicker) wall of the black element is actually an enclosure housing the gear reduction for the brush motor. On the spindle of the lift motor is a grey pulley, on which a short string is wound when the brush housing is lifted from the ground. The string is terminated by a small brass cap passing through a hole in the blue part of the housing. This cap is (barely) visible at the bottom of the housing in the preceding picture.
 
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Revision as of 15:13, 10 March 2010

This page is dedicated to the disassembly of a Roomba 560 vacuuming robot. Its purpose is to provide AIRLab users (or anyone else) wanting to hack a Roomba with a guide to the process, so that they can plan their work easily. Other Roomba 500-series models should be similar to the one featured in this page.

Please note that the robot we have taken apart was well-used, so you will see a fair bit of dust and dirt on the parts... all for the sake of realism. (Just joking: simply, that was a broken robot we could spare in case the process proved to be fatal :-) )

If you click on any of the images below, you will be taken to its own AIRWiki page, where you will be able to download the file. However, the files are NOT high-resolution (480x320 pixels: on this page they are shown at full resolution). You can download the high-resolution originals of the images (and some additional image not shown by this AIRWiki page) from here. Note that the originals are 3888x2592 pixels, and each of them weighs in at 3-5MB.

Before dissection

Here you can see the Roomba 560 before any disassembling occurred.

Removing the bottom cover

To get to the electromechanical elements of the robot, you have to remove the bottom cover (as we will see later, electronics is accessed from the top instead).

The brush housing

This element is more complex than it is immediately apparent.