irobot frustration...what should I do?

paultxsa · Guest

Don't get me wrong...I love the Roomba. My wife even calls it my 'girlfriend'.

...but, it is starting to really aggravate me. I bought my first Roomba a week before Thanksgiving last year (2 1/2 months ago). It worked so great, I just loved it....for about two weeks. It started going in crazy little circles, stopping, then going in its crazy little circles again. It would do this a few times, then 'uh-oh' until it got my attention.

I called Irobot's customer service, afraid I had killed it somehow, only to have the nice girl tell me, "no problem, it sounds like a problem with one of the wheel motors. just send us the wire guard and we'll send you a whole new Roomba."

...fantastic!

So...three weeks later, the UPS man drops off Roomba #2 at my house. We charge the battery back up, and off it goes.....for two weeks.

...same crazy little circles until it stops...same 'uh-oh' to get my attention.

I call customer service (again) to tell them what the problem is (again) and the nice girl tells me "no problem, it sounds like a problem with one of the wheel motors" (again). This time, she wants me to send them the whole Roomba back at their expense. I ask the nice girl if a service life of two weeks is average for a Roomba and she assures me that it is very unusual for that to be the case (I am just the lucky one?)

So..off goes the Roomba with the UPS man....

FOUR weeks later, I get an email form Roomba telling me that they are out of stock and I will have to wait to get mine until they decide to manufacture some more. BUT! ...not to worry they say, they won't charge me for it until it ships. (what a relief, especially since this is a warranty thing and there is supposed to be no charge)

I reply to them telling them I am tired of waiting and want something done...three days later, I get another email and lo and behold! they must have found another Roomba somewhere, because they are shipping another one to me ... ...with no explanation or apology.

I have owned a Roomba for almost three months, and been able to use it for four weeks of that time....

So....do you think I should call them back and ask them to get another Roomba ready for me now, so that in two weeks when this little devil stops working, they will have another one ready for me? ...or should I wait two weeks until it breaks again and mail the pieces back to them and ask them a refund of the $250-ish I spent on it?

paultxsa · Guest

I forgot to mention that out of the box, the wall unit/docking station didn't work. The Roomba (the first one) never saw it and would just run right into it while it was vacuuming as if it were a wall, and NEVER would dock itself at the end of a cycle.

Irobot did replace that pretty quickly.

C · Guest

You are not the only "lucky" one..
I had to go through 5 Roombas till I gave up. Some were dead out of the box, some worked for couple of days and one actualy worked for almost a month.

Several things can be said about Roomba:
1) It would have been a great tool if it was reliable.
2) iRobot got a lousy (the worst I have seen) quality control.
3) On the positive side, iRobot got very good customer care. Unfortunately it doesn't make up for the first two points.

Maybe the next generation will be better, I for sure won't buy another current generation Roomba.

nes · Guest

what model are you having these problems with ?

paultxsa · Guest

it is a Discovery ...(SE ?)...the new one as of Nov '04... the mostly white one with black...it was sold to me by the folks over at Home Depot...

Kenwood True X · Guest Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 123

Hmmm, what seems strange to me is that some people have so many problems and go through five Roomba's while others have no problems at all. The only explanation is that it has something to do with the environment in which the Roomba is being run. Some people are probably running their Roomba's much harder then others, not on purpose but maybe because of the carpet they have. Are you running it on medium to high pile carpet? Running it on that could possibly wear out the motors much more quickly, which could be your problem.

Rick · Guest

I agree 100%. From what I have seen, people who run their Roombas on low pile carpet or bare floors experience far fewer problems then those with thicker carpets.

Also, if you are picking up a lot of pet fur or long hair then you simply must maintain the Roomba very well or you will eventually burn a motor out. Many times the people who are having problems don't realize that the problem isn't with the unit, but with the way that they treat the unit.

Don't get my wrong, I've seen my share of bad Roombas right out of the box. But if I have one that is working from the start, if it breaks afterwards I can usually narrow it down to something that I did wrong. (I do 'experiment' on my Roombas from time to time, and sometimes they don't always recover from the experience.)

Rick

lab rat · Guest

I have 90% hardwoods and 10% *very* low pile carpet.

I clean the roomba VERY carefully after each use... use it about 5 times a week..

I'm on #4 now ... 2 months

1st failure was circle of death...

2nd failure was stopped charging no matter what was tried.

3rd failure was stopped for no reason at all, but would manually start up green afterwards and run fine sometimes, others ... stop again ...

:-(

paultxsa · Guest

I have low pile carpet and ceramic tile...the roomba works very well on both (when it is working)...I have no pets. I clean the roller and brush after almost every use. I NEVER 'experimented' on the Roomba....

...what else ya got?

Rick wrote: I agree 100%. From what I have seen, people who run their Roombas on low pile carpet or bare floors experience far fewer problems then those with thicker carpets.

Also, if you are picking up a lot of pet fur or long hair then you simply must maintain the Roomba very well or you will eventually burn a motor out. Many times the people who are having problems don't realize that the problem isn't with the unit, but with the way that they treat the unit.

Don't get my wrong, I've seen my share of bad Roombas right out of the box. But if I have one that is working from the start, if it breaks afterwards I can usually narrow it down to something that I did wrong. (I do 'experiment' on my Roombas from time to time, and sometimes they don't always recover from the experience.)

Rick

kenmar · Guest Joined: 25 Nov 2004 Posts: 1

Bought my Roomba Discovery SE last November. I have been able to use it for about 4 weeks. About 3 weeks after it was delivered the Home Base docking station and Fast Charger unit went bad. They sent a new one in about a week. That Docking Unit/Charger lasted about 10 days. The third one took about 5 weeks to arrive. (It arrived a few days ago.) It didn't work at all.

They have a poorly designed charging unit. The component's tolerance levels in it are under-rated causing it to over heat. When the company tells you in their literature to operate it in a cool place it's obvious they are aware of it's limitations. Plus the self-protection circuits in the charger are un-reliable.

I bought my unit from Hammacher Schlemmer and they have very good customer service, but if the product is poorly designed ( Charger's Electronics) and the factory doesn't admit to a design error, the good customer service from Hammacher (Through no fault of their own) is useless.

As someone mentioned earlier, the Roomba, when functioning, is a great and useful appliance, but my patience is wearing thin.

Hival · Guest

Just got my Roomba yesterday. I don't want to wait until my time to return has expired. Should I return it now or hope for the best? Val

anengineer · Guest

Got my "wife" one for xmas. Shee started using it the
day after xmas.

Started the circle dance 3-weeks ago. Tore it apart including
opening up wheel drive housings and thoroughly cleaned.
Reassembled.

Ran good until just now. It's starting the circle dance again,
circle a bit then wildly maneuver left/right/reverse-circle
then forward, circle, shut down a few seconds, starts up
and repeats the circling routine. Just shut down again,
hee-hawed, then beeped four times.

anengineer · Guest

Here is the fix for the "circle dance" problem.
It's a dirty optical encoder sensor. Fix is
temporary (until it gets dirty again).

See image below:

JJ · Guest

Awesome tip, thanks!!

Did you have to take the body off everytime to clean this sensor, or have you tried just blowing it out with comrpessed air now that you know where it is?

AnotherEngineer · Guest

Cleaning worked for me too. First roomba went back under warranty for circle dance and was not looking forward to sending second out of warranty. They need to make it easier to get to/clean the sensor. Next time will try just removing easily to get to screws and compressed air.

kroyster · Guest Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 6 Location: Charlotte, NC

Thank you for this great tip! :lol: I bought my wife a Roomba Discovery SE for xmas, and we had enjoyed it thoroughly until a few weeks ago when it began the "Circle Dance" of death. :shock: I used it frequently (1 or 2 rooms a day, on average), but mostly on hardwood floors and very low pile carpets. Tech support was great - they had me try a few things to fix it, but when that didn't work, they provided an RMA# and told me to ship them the wire brush cover with my serial # on it. My free replacement came yesterday, so I figured I didn't have anything to loose by trying to fix the old one. A quick search of "roomba fix" on google led me here, and within 30 minutes I had it fixed with a little rubbing alcohol and a q-tip. (It did start the "dance" again immediately after cleaning, but quickly worked through it and is currently cleaning my floors as I type this).

Now my only question is, where can I find a replacement wire brush cover? :roll: That and a new battery will give me a 2nd roomba!! But I don't see the wire brush covers on their accessories site.

Guest · Guest

kroyster wrote: Now my only question is, where can I find a replacement wire brush cover? :roll: That and a new battery will give me a 2nd roomba!! But I don't see the wire brush covers on their accessories site.

How to build your own brush guard.

Guest · Guest

anengineer wrote: Here is the fix for the "circle dance" problem.
It's a dirty optical encoder sensor. Fix is
temporary (until it gets dirty again).

Any chance you could post a step by step on disassembly?

kroyster · Guest Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 6 Location: Charlotte, NC

[quote="Anonymous"] anengineer wrote: Here is the fix for the "circle
Any chance you could post a step by step on disassembly?

Here's how I fixed mine..... There are 8 screws you need to remove from the bottom of the roomba discovery to separate the top cover from the base: 2 in the battery well, 2 in the brush well, and 4 on the main underbelly (I'm going from memory, but I think that's right). With those removed, I was able to loosen (but not remove) the top cover from the main roomba body. I was able to pry it up enough to expose and remove another screw that is holding the wheel "fender" in place. Repeat for the other wheel. With the fenders out of the way, you can fully access all 4 screws holding each wheel cover "hub cap" in place. Remove those and you should see the wheel as shown in the original image in this thread. Now remove the "gear" and rubber o-ring driving it, fully exposing the dirty optical encoder sensor for cleaning. Now put it all back together (you kept the screws in order, right? :wink: ) taking care that the wires at the top of the "hub caps" don't get underneath and caught up in the pulley shaft that drives the wheel.

gman101010 · Guest

The cleaning instructions for the optical sensors were great. Thanks for posting them. I found quite a bit of black rubber particles in my wheel areas and the sensors very dirty. While I had the unit apart (following your directions) I used tin snips to cut a round access area around the wheels. I can now remove the wheel hub caps by just removing the 4 screws. The Roomba does not seem to mind the missing plastic.