My wife had a roomba vacuum, that worked ok - barely - for about a
year. Then the rechargeable battery pack died beyond fixing, so many
of the cells died. A neighbor gave me one that has the "go to home"
feature, but its battery has also died beyond repairing. Is this
typical of Roomba's in general, being made with crappy rechargeable
batteries? When 3/4 of the total cells in a battery pack won't hold a
charge, I think that's pretty crummy. The Roomba manufacturerer had a
good idea, but I wouldn't buy one now even at 1/4 the normal price
because of my bad experiences.

On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:32:25 -0700 (PDT), "hr(bob) "
wrote:

My wife had a roomba vacuum, that worked ok - barely - for about a
year. Then the rechargeable battery pack died beyond fixing, so many
of the cells died. A neighbor gave me one that has the "go to home"
feature, but its battery has also died beyond repairing. Is this
typical of Roomba's in general, being made with crappy rechargeable
batteries? When 3/4 of the total cells in a battery pack won't hold a
charge, I think that's pretty crummy. The Roomba manufacturerer had a
good idea, but I wouldn't buy one now even at 1/4 the normal price
because of my bad experiences.


Probably cheap batteries. Send the pack to www.primecell.com (or one
of a bunch of similar places) and have it rebuilt with better, longer
lasting batteries.

On Oct 20, 12:32*am, "hr(bob) "
wrote:
My wife had a roomba vacuum, that worked ok - barely - for about a
year. *Then the rechargeable battery pack died beyond fixing

I'd say a solid year (~8000 hours allowing 2 per 24 for charging) is
pretty good performance of a rechargeable battery.
-----

- gpsman

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 06:00:18 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:32:25 -0700 (PDT), "hr(bob) "
wrote:

My wife had a roomba vacuum, that worked ok - barely - for about a
year. Then the rechargeable battery pack died beyond fixing, so many
of the cells died. A neighbor gave me one that has the "go to home"
feature, but its battery has also died beyond repairing. Is this
typical of Roomba's in general, being made with crappy rechargeable
batteries? When 3/4 of the total cells in a battery pack won't hold a
charge, I think that's pretty crummy. The Roomba manufacturerer had a
good idea, but I wouldn't buy one now even at 1/4 the normal price
because of my bad experiences.


Probably cheap batteries. Send the pack to www.primecell.com (or one
of a bunch of similar places) and have it rebuilt with better, longer
lasting batteries.

That's a good idea, or buy replacements from these guys:

http://www.all-battery.com/search.aspx?find=roomba

At least they have them for the 400 series because I've bought three
already. Roomba does seem to come with pretty crappy batteries that
last around 18 months for me. That's using them every third day or so.

The replacements have been much better I think.

I do love the roombas though. I have one upstairs and one downstairs
and four cats. The Roombas do a very good job cleaning up after them
but I suggest not letting Roomba process the occasional hairball if
it's still wet.

My floors are wood but I've heard that they do a good job on carpet as
well.

On 10/19/2011 11:32 PM, hr(bob) wrote:
My wife had a roomba vacuum, that worked ok - barely - for about a
year. Then the rechargeable battery pack died beyond fixing, so many
of the cells died. A neighbor gave me one that has the "go to home"
feature, but its battery has also died beyond repairing. Is this
typical of Roomba's in general, being made with crappy rechargeable
batteries? When 3/4 of the total cells in a battery pack won't hold a
charge, I think that's pretty crummy. The Roomba manufacturerer had a
good idea, but I wouldn't buy one now even at 1/4 the normal price
because of my bad experiences.

We have four Roomba's and of course the batteries go bad after a lot of
use, that is just the nature of any battery. Simply go to e-bay and buy
a new one. Next to the round wire ball that picks up walnuts it is one
of the best inventions ever!

Don

IGot2P wrote:
On 10/19/2011 11:32 PM, hr(bob) wrote:
My wife had a roomba vacuum, that worked ok - barely - for about a
year. Then the rechargeable battery pack died beyond fixing, so many
of the cells died. A neighbor gave me one that has the "go to home"
feature, but its battery has also died beyond repairing. Is this
typical of Roomba's in general, being made with crappy rechargeable
batteries? When 3/4 of the total cells in a battery pack won't hold
a charge, I think that's pretty crummy. The Roomba manufacturerer
had a good idea, but I wouldn't buy one now even at 1/4 the normal
price because of my bad experiences.

We have four Roomba's and of course the batteries go bad after a lot
of use, that is just the nature of any battery. Simply go to e-bay
and buy a new one. Next to the round wire ball that picks up walnuts
it is one of the best inventions ever!


Second that. Replacement batteries are about 1/4th the price of official
Roomba batteries.

and buy a new one. Next to the round wire ball that picks up walnuts
it is one of the best inventions ever!

Would that work on Buckeyes? We have a couple trees that have
driving us nuts (so to speak). That HAS to be a lot easier than picking
them up by hand.

--
People thought cybersex was a safe alternative,
until patients started presenting with sexually
acquired carpal tunnel syndrome.-Howard Berkowitz

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:00:59 -0500, IGot2P wrote:

We have four Roomba's and of course the batteries go bad after a lot of
use, that is just the nature of any battery. Simply go to e-bay and buy
a new one. Next to the round wire ball that picks up walnuts it is one
of the best inventions ever!

Don

I see the Roomba also serves a cat ride or a battle platform :-/

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf9wHkkNGUU

On 10/20/2011 4:21 PM, Kurt Ullman wrote:
and buy a new one. Next to the round wire ball that picks up walnuts
it is one of the best inventions ever!

Would that work on Buckeyes? We have a couple trees that have
driving us nuts (so to speak). That HAS to be a lot easier than picking
them up by hand.


They should work great for buckeyes. The only time that they lose a nut
is when you try to pick up a nut that is exceptionally larger than the
ones already in the ball. What happens is the big nut will open the
wires wide enough to let smaller ones drop through. Really no problem as
all you have to do is roll over the small ones again and they are picked
up. Actually, they do have different sizes. Some are even used to pick
up spent brass at shooting ranges. Search Amazon.com for "nut picker
upper" (without the quotes).

Don

Oren wrote:
On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:00:59 -0500, IGot2P wrote:

We have four Roomba's and of course the batteries go bad after a lot
of use, that is just the nature of any battery. Simply go to e-bay
and buy a new one. Next to the round wire ball that picks up walnuts
it is one of the best inventions ever!

Don

I see the Roomba also serves a cat ride or a battle platform :-/

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf9wHkkNGUU

Yep. Roomba has free APIs that you can use on your computer to control the
beast.

dgk wrote:
On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 06:00:18 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:32:25 -0700 (PDT), "hr(bob) "
wrote:

My wife had a roomba vacuum, that worked ok - barely - for about a
year. Then the rechargeable battery pack died beyond fixing, so
many of the cells died. A neighbor gave me one that has the "go to
home" feature, but its battery has also died beyond repairing. Is
this typical of Roomba's in general, being made with crappy
rechargeable batteries? When 3/4 of the total cells in a battery
pack won't hold a charge, I think that's pretty crummy. The Roomba
manufacturerer had a good idea, but I wouldn't buy one now even at
1/4 the normal price because of my bad experiences.


Probably cheap batteries. Send the pack to www.primecell.com (or one
of a bunch of similar places) and have it rebuilt with better, longer
lasting batteries.

That's a good idea, or buy replacements from these guys:

http://www.all-battery.com/search.aspx?find=roomba

At least they have them for the 400 series because I've bought three
already. Roomba does seem to come with pretty crappy batteries that
last around 18 months for me. That's using them every third day or so.

The replacements have been much better I think.

I do love the roombas though. I have one upstairs and one downstairs
and four cats. The Roombas do a very good job cleaning up after them
but I suggest not letting Roomba process the occasional hairball if
it's still wet.

My floors are wood but I've heard that they do a good job on carpet as
well.

My father has one that cleans up the pet hair on the carpet well. Still going
strong after a couple years.

"Bob F" wrote in message
...
dgk wrote:
On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 06:00:18 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
wrote:

stuff snipped

At least they have them for the 400 series because I've bought three
already. Roomba does seem to come with pretty crappy batteries that
last around 18 months for me. That's using them every third day or so.

I bought some yellow NiMH Tenergy replacements for half of IRobber charges
for NiCads. The trick to longevity is to remove the batteries after fulling
charging them. The ones that sat in the self-recharging base died the
fastest, probably from overcharging. Now that I pull the batteries after
each recharge they seem to last much longer and are ready to go once
reloaded.

The replacements have been much better I think.

Yes. The NiMH batteries run much longer and seem more tolerant of charging
abuse. If you read the manual it gives a very detailed, step by step method
of recharging batteries that indicates to me that charging is in part
controlled by the Roomba's on-board circuitry. I had a little trouble with
short run times with the new battery until I read how to "recondition" them.

I do love the roombas though. I have one upstairs and one downstairs
and four cats. The Roombas do a very good job cleaning up after them
but I suggest not letting Roomba process the occasional hairball if
it's still wet.

I find it a bitch to clean the rollers all the time and heaven help you if
you let the onboard bin fill up because the Roomba will then start packing
dirt into the inside of the machine. I have five of them (Fry's at one time
sold the red jobs and the Dirt Dog for as low as $60 each. The prices have
since skyrocketed. What they are most useful for, to me at least, is when I
have to do a "speed clean" of the house. I let three of them loose while I
spot vacuum and straighten up and worry about cleaning them out later.
Drives the dog nuts but three of them working at once can really vacuum up a
place pronto. Gets dog hair up (because of the beater brushes - the Dirt
Dog has two) that regular vacuuming misses.

My floors are wood but I've heard that they do a good job on carpet as
well.

My father has one that cleans up the pet hair on the carpet well. Still
going
strong after a couple years.

Mine have lasted quite a while now that I make sure to never let them
overload with dust and dirt. Killed two that way (gritty dust got into the
motorized wheels) but Roomba sent two free replacements and let me keep the
defective units which will serve as "hangar queens" (Air Force maintenance
term) for the other working units. There's nothing better for cleaning dog
hair under beds.

--
Bobby G.

I just rebuilt mine with aftermarket battery cells - a piece of cake
and real cheap.

That's a real shock. To be reading OWS and complaining about
federal regulation. And then, without warning, read an on
topic post about repairing something in the home. My day may
not be the same!

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"BSAKing" wrote in message
...
I just rebuilt mine with aftermarket battery cells - a piece
of cake
and real cheap.