Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello: Sick Roomba

Monday, May 05, 2008

Sick Roomba

My Roomba is suffering heart failure, and can no longer work longer than 10 minutes, or so, before crawling back into bed. As much as I love Roomba, the $49 asking price for a new battery is just ½ the cost of entire rebuilt Roomba systems that Woot periodically features. Rebuilt, yes, but the battery is new. I can't bring myself to squander the money, so I went looking. Here's the complete how-to rebuild your battery pack with new than 12 Sub-C Cell NiMH batteries. That's great, but it appears that will still cost as much, or more, than buying one. Any suggestions? Will bringing the existing cells to total discharge rejuvenate them?

Prevailing Mood = 2

Rodger the Real King of France 5/05/2008 12:53:00 PM 10 Comments

"If the number of Islamic terror attacks continues at the current rate, candlelight vigils will soon be the number-one cause of global warming. "
Argus Hamilton

10 comments:

B....... said...: I think you're SOL Rodger. That 3500 mAh NiMH for $ 2.89 is probably the cheapest you will find. And, NiMHs don’t suffer from memory problems, so you will not be able to recondition them by total discharge. Sorry....; 5/5/08, 1:19 PM
Anonymous said...: How about a broom? Here's one for $16.00. http://www.hensonbrooms.com/handmade-brooms.html; 5/5/08, 1:37 PM
Anonymous said...: try frezzing the battery pack, it has worked for me on phone batteries.; 5/5/08, 2:34 PM
Anonymous said...: I'm in the same boat as you Rodge. I love the roomba when it's working, but the replacement cost is just too high.; 5/5/08, 2:52 PM
Anonymous said...: We need you rich trendy folks to buy these expensive replacement batteries so the price will be driven down and then, eventually, I can afford to buy one as well.; 5/5/08, 4:22 PM
Anonymous said...: We purchased 2 roombas (buy 1, get 1 free on HSN). We had the same problem so we purchased the two batteries. They docked overnight and the next morning they still would not run more than 10 minutes. Therefore, we plugged directly into the roomba's bypassing the docking station. And Voola! They are happily racing around the house again. Give that a try. Sadly, the trash dude had already come so we could not try that on the old batteries. Good luck!; 5/5/08, 7:52 PM
Anonymous said...: I found a new rebuild kit for my Rommba battery on Ebay. About $30 as I remember.
Tim; 5/5/08, 8:05 PM
Rodger the Real King of France said...: Did it work? How long ago? Easy to do?; 5/5/08, 9:00 PM
Anonymous said...: Zap the battery pack with a MIG welder. Seriously. The arc will break loose the sediment or whatever that builds up in the packs.

I've done this with several cordless drill packs and it works fine for the cheap NiCad type. Not sure about NiMH. Be careful, regarless.

Here's a video.
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2006/12/how_to_revive_n.html

--Jack; 5/6/08, 11:31 AM
Anonymous said...: oops. wrong link. here ya go:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Revive-Nicad-Batteries-by-Zapping-with-a-Welder/

Some of the comments claim this works for NiMH.; 5/6/08, 11:34 AM

Monday, May 05, 2008

Sick Roomba

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