Pueblog USa
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Tips for Roamie
The undocumented tips of working with a robot in the house.
When we bought this house, I asked the distaff how often she wanted to vacuum the 6500 square foot area. When her eyes started spinning I knew we’d get a Roomba robotic sweeper.
So we got it. It has been a wife-saver; as she does the majority of the cleaning in this house. [Note: I do the majority of the cooking.]
Well, of late, Roamie, as we refer to it, has been acting up. Shying, like a horse before a jump it doesn’t want to take. Going in a partial circle, trying to go forward again and, once more, shying back. As if he were suddenly surrounded with sheer drops that would dash him to pieces.
Doing the usual immediate action drill of blowing out the light-sensitive sensors along his front didn’t solve the problem. Doing the first echelon maintenance effort of removing the brush assembly and removing any tangles of the distaff’s long dark hair didn’t do it either. Blowing out the light-sensitive sensors with a can of computer dust remover didn’t help.
So there I was jetting pressurized air into every nook and cranny of the head assembly of my beloved horseshoe crap-esque wife-saver when, well, I wouldn’t call it a dust mouse, it was ENTIRELY TOO BIG—blew out of an odd corner where I don’t recall the people at iRobot counselled me to pay ANY attention to—I’d call it a dust RAT.
At any rate, if you’ve got one of these wonderful beasties, be sure to clean it THOROUGHLY; every nook and cranny. In order to keep it going strong.