Dr. Roomba has submitted detailed instructions for building your own brush retainer. Why would you want to do this? Well, if your Roomba ever develops a mechanical failure that requires replacement, iRobot asks that you send the brush guard back to them. This mod will allow you to use your old, broken Roomba for experimentation and other modding.

"The wire is common coat hanger, and it took about 2 1/2 hours to make using two pairs of needle nose pliers. There are a couple intricate curves that need to be made, but just take your time. I tried to hurry things on my first attempt, and the constant fast bending snapped my first piece of wire. The finished product makes plenty of tension against the tabs of the yellow bearings, both "downward" to hold the brushes in place on the tab end, and "sideways" to hold the brushes into their respective sockets on the other end. I created the thing in an evening while sitting on the couch watching TV- anyone can do this!

The caveats of this design is that about every other use, when I take the retainer off, I need to check for "slop" on the bearings- be careful not to bend the retainer out of shape. The wire is plenty stiff enough to avoid this fairly well, and looks like it will last a long time otherwise. The other caveat may take a long-term toll- this design allows the socket ends exposed, and dog hair is being pulled into the gearbox on that end- very bad eventually. The last thing is that I have silicone grease I use EXTREMELY sparingly on the bearings, both brush ends, and the gearbox sockets. My entire problem that led to this was friction on the plastic parts that melted together. The grease will prevent any bonding due to heat. "


Discussion on this topic is located in this thread.



Discussion on this topic is located in this thread.