robot vacuums have been around for
almost 20 years now and they're awesome
they clean our homes they shoot lasers
and they function as a fantastic taxi
for pets but robots might also take over
the world one day so I wanted to recruit
my own robot vacuum army just to see how
they work why this loop of data
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all right so robot vacuum Anatomy 101 I
chose the Roomba 880 because it's got
pretty much everything you would see in
your average robot vacuum it's got your
display on top with the buttons so
you'll also spot your Archon controller
on top which stands for Roomba
confinement and what that does is when
you first start your Roomba it sends an
infrared signal out in all directions
waits for the signal to come back to the
receiver and what that does is it tells
the Roomba how big the room is and then
it can decide how long it takes to clean
it those receivers are also located
inside the bumper so the bumper acts
more like a smart bumper and not just a
big hunk of plastic that prevents the
Roomba from getting damaged during clean
the other thing you'll spot on top is
the dust bin complete with its own set
of sensors and a filter all right so
flipping it over first thing we spot is
the side mounted flailing brush which
pushes debris underneath the vacuum and
it's operated by zone motor unlike your
normal vacuum which uses rollers with
tough bristles or brushes the robot
vacuums use dual counter rotating rubber
treads to pick up dirt inspector and
we've also got one tiny caster wheel and
two larger treaded wheels that are
operated by their own electric motor and
most importantly to the room boasts
function are the six clip sensors
located around the outside edge these
sensors are always on and they're always
shooting infrared beams and when the
Roomba is on a normal surface the beam
comes back to the receiver very quickly
because you have floor directly below it
but when you approach the edge of a
cliff the infrared beam gets lost and so
the Roomba knows there's nothing below
it it needs to stop turn around and go a
different direction all right so it's
pretty much all that we can see from the
outside but to get the rest of the story
we're going to have to dig a little bit
deeper so safety first let's start
removing the battery
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so power from your robot vacuum
generally comes from a rechargeable and
super easy to replace battery pack if
your robot vacuum isn't as powerful or
isn't cleaning for as long as it should
just go online grab a replacement
battery stick it back in and you'll be
good as new another component that's
easy to replace is this slide flailing
brush just one screw will take it right
out this brush actually pushes debris
underneath the vacuum which means it's
got a chance of getting some pretty
nasty stuff caught around it so be sure
to go in take it out clean it out every
once in a while if you find that it
still doesn't work after you've been
cleaning you might want to dive in and
check out the motor underneath like I
mentioned before these are the
counter-rotating rubber treads that the
Roomba uses to pick up dirt and put it
into the vacuum they're different from
your standard vacuum which uses rollers
and brushes that end up getting tangled
in rugs have a hard time going over
different types of flooring these rubber
treads are much less accident-prone and
will function a lot better when cleaning
up your house
Roomba moves itself around your house
with two rubber wheels that are
independently operated by their own
electric motors the harder the motors
have to work the shorter the battery
life for your Roomba so you really want
to make sure you get in here and clean
out and hair any debris that's causing
the motor to work harder
although room is look pretty good be
bumbling around your house they're
actually pretty smart according to I
robot robot backs are making 60
decisions every second thanks to the
help of all these onboard sensors I
pointed out a few of the clip sensors
early on but there's actually even more
when your Roomba knocks into something
its bumper retracts and it activates a
mechanical object sensor that tells it
that it's encountered an object then
you'll see it go through the whole
process of backing up rotating and
moving forward until it finds a clear
path so to get to the motherboard we're
going to need to remove the faceplate
which has tons of screws including
triangle screws which makes no sense
there's no reason to have these on here
besides to keep you out
and it's like a little city resistors
and capacitors a lot of words pretty
crazy but we've got some tactile
switches which we use on the display and
it looks like all of our centers that we
talked about earlier are just connected
to through the motherboard with
connectors I don't see any soldered
wires on here which is pretty great so
if you ever need to service your
Spencer's or clean them so your room but
doesn't take a dive off your stairs you
should just be able to disconnect them
I'm going to try to disconnect this one
that's all for this gadget guys we have
tons of repair guides for Roombas and
regular vacuums alike over at ifixit.com
and don't forget to comment below with
your ideas for our next gadget guts you
can also tweet your ideas to me at
Kelsey fixes and I'll see you next time
you