Please remove and clean Roomba’s Brushes
By john on Jul 13, 2009 in Home Automation, featured
I love my Roomba. It keeps my floors clean and I don’t have to worry about vacuuming. That is, until something breaks.
Roomba is great, when everything is working right. Sometimes, though, it doesn’t work quite right. Some carpets – like the carpet I have in the great room of my house – trigger it’s cliff sensors, causing it to freak out and stop with an ominous tone that sounds somewhat akin to a sad “oh no”. Problems like that are easily solved (put white paper and tape over the cliff sensors), but not all of them are.
Recently, Flomar (my Roomba), has stopped almost immediately into cleaning and asked, rather cheerily, “Please remove and clean Roomba’s brushes!” And so I would open the brush compartment, pull them out and realize….. they’re still clean from the LAST time I removed and cleaned Flomar’s brushes.
I’ve since come to learn that this particular issue is a design flaw with the cleaning head module (CHM) in the 560 model, which – if your roomba is under warranty, iRobot will likely send you a new CHM that uses an improved design. IF however your Roomba is no longer under warranty… there’s still an option. You can perform invasive surgery into your Roomba.
The surgery involves taking out the CHM and cleaning the gearbox.
First you’ll need to take out the four screws holding the bottom plate onto the Roomba, (you can take off the spinning front brush first, if you want – it saves some effort), and pull that plate off. Then there will be four screws holding the purple frame around the brush box in place. Unscrew those and take the brush box and purple frame out of the Roomba. on one side there’s red gearbox. Unscrew the four screws holding that side of the purple frame together, and remove that side of the frame. Then, unscrew the six screws holding the gearbox cover on and carefully pull it off. Clean the gears inside however you want, if needed re-grease the box with white grease (use sparingly), and put it back together.
The underlying cause of the problem – as you’ll notice – is an accumulation of hair, dust and dirt in the gearbox that prevents normal operation of the brushes. As a result, a power output is required to keep the brushes turning, triggering the circuitry that determines if the brushes are dirty (and prompts you to clean them.) So, because turning the brushes requires too much power, it constantly stops and tells you to clean the brushes – even if the brushes themselves are already clean.
I have two cats living in the house, which means a TON of fur. This fur gets everywhere, and was a royal pain to remove from the gearbox. If you can, I recommend getting an updated CHM from iRobot. If not, give this a try – it may bring your Roomba back to life.
[Update: 4/13/10]:
I’m quite happy to see that so many people seem to be finding this post and find it to be helpful. SOME of you might also find another post on my other blog useful: http://john.whelans.net/archives/705 – My Roomba stays on the ground floor of my house, and has issues with dark colored flooring and it’s cliff sensors. I tried the “piece of paper taped over the sensors” trick, but the paper kept getting messed up. There’s a more permanent fix that doesn’t require cutting wires, soldering, or anything like that. If you can work a screw driver you can do this – and it works great.
[Update 6/6/10]:
After about a year of cleaning the gears that drive the Roomba CHM (Cleaning Head Module), the CHM in my roomba broke. One of the metal spokes that the gears attach to caused enough friction that it wore through the plastic housing and threw the gears out of alignment. I had two options: Buy a new CHM from iRobot that has the same defect that caused this scenario in the first place, or buy a modified CHM from a third party. I opted to go for the modified CHM, which uses ball bearings to seal the gearbox from the cleaning brush chamber. The end result is a CHM that cleans every bit as well as the original, without having to continuously clean the gears.
It’s not cheap – $130 or so – but totally worth the money to avoid having to take apart my Roomba every few weeks.
I got mine from Vic – at http://vic7767.com. He ships promptly and his workmanship is top notch. Highly recommended.
Additionally, consider getting the AeroVac bin to replace the stock bin that comes with the Roomba. The AeroVac bin is redesigned and works significantly better. With that, and a bearing modified CHM your Roomba will become a super vacuum.
Popularity: 65% [?]
I don’t have a Roomba, but as I’ve talked to you about yours before, this was still an interesting post
. Good to hear you’ve got it back up and running 
sayerbloke | Jul 13, 2009 | Reply
This has stumped me for a few weeks now.
I just finished following your gear-cleaning instructions and so far so good…the wee thing has been happily cleaning the spare room for the last 10 minutes…quite a record.
Brilliant…
thanks
mike | Sep 5, 2009 | Reply
Wow! My Roomba has come back to life because of your post! It’s in hyper fast mode now compared to the last couple months. Thanks big time!
don | Oct 7, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for publishing this. Our Roomba had exactly this problem, and now it’s working well again.
Darin McGrew | Dec 11, 2009 | Reply
This did the trick. Thank you so much!
Allen | Dec 20, 2009 | Reply
Thank you so much! My roomba is back and cleaning the kitchen floor. I don’t know what I would have done without it and you were that lifesaver. Thanks!
Claire | Jan 27, 2010 | Reply
Thank you! My fiancee fought hard against getting a roomba, and I was petrified when I thought it was bricked.
Earle | Feb 1, 2010 | Reply
Thank you, thank you and a thank you once again! We were at our wits end and came across this post through a link in Fixya. Our Roomba works wonderfully now! =))
Su | Mar 7, 2010 | Reply
You, sir, are da man. I also came here via spikeeasy’s post on fixya, with a chronic rhythmic thumping sound during cleaning then, today, acute repeated “please remove and clean Roomba’s brushes!”. You gave me the confidence to take the screws out of the thing to clean it further in than the usual. Put it back together, still exhibited both symptoms. Then I realized that, being a different model of Roomba, a 562 pet series, I’d hadn’t actually found the gearbox. (I know, hardly rocket science, but I’m only a software engineer.) With two short-hair cats, one girlfriend, definitely a long-hair, and several rugs, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised at just how impacted the gearbox was after surely less than a year. It’s working like a charm now – both symptoms cleared. I skipped the re-greasing step, reasoning that they’re plastic gears and that perhaps it won’t get quite so messy next time. It definitely came greased from the factory, so that’s at least two more knowledgeable people whose recommendation I’ve gone against. Hmm. I’ll post again in a year when it catches fire
.
mad | Mar 28, 2010 | Reply
The second time I cleaned mine I did not re-grease it. It’s not necessarily REQUIRED to regrease, but it probably will help improve the longevity of the motor / parts.
john | Mar 29, 2010 | Reply
Thank you! You saved my Roomba and my second floor will be clean again after WEEKS of him not running. I refuse to carry the big POS vacuum upstairs so it was getting pretty bad.
Lynn | Apr 10, 2010 | Reply
WORKED LIKE A CHARM!!!!! THANK YOU. I WAS AT MY WITS END. MY ROOMBA SEEMS AS GOOD AS NEW!!!
G | Apr 11, 2010 | Reply
What parts do I need to grease in the Cleaning Head Module? Do I grease only the teeth of the white gears? Do I only grease the very middle of the white gears that pivot on the metal parts that turns the gears? Or do I need to grease both? Thanks!
Nick | Apr 13, 2010 | Reply
Hi Nick:
I only greased the teeth of the white gears and my Roomba has been behaving happily since.
john | Apr 13, 2010 | Reply
We came back from a week’s vacation to find Roomba, perhaps dried out from lack of grease (see previous post), making a grinding noise and back to chronic “please remove and clean Roomba’s brushes”. The long-hair wasn’t happy with the idea of my stinky white lithium grease being potentially ingested by the short-hairs, so we tried olive oil. That seems insufficiently viscous to stay where it’s put. The noise still doesn’t sound right. I’m wondering where to get a replacement for the translucent Ptfe washer that I lost in my first gearbox service, having now, after the third gearbox disassembly, finally understood what it was there for and why there were only two of them, one for each roller’s gear.
mad | May 2, 2010 | Reply
After fighting roomba all day and taking apart everything, I found your post and after a 15 min clean of the gears, roomba is back to cleaning like the champion she is. The dog is still terrified of her though. Thanks for the info, huge help!
kevin | Jun 6, 2010 | Reply
I took it apart down to the gear box and cleaned it, put it back together and I’m still getting the same irritating message. Should I maybe repeat the process or perhaps it’s something else altogether?
Raye | Jun 16, 2010 | Reply
Check also the bearings on the brushes to see if any hair or dirt is caught in those – that will also trigger this alert (and will usually also cause your roomba to make a clicking type noise while it does work). To do that – take the bearings off (the small yellow piece attached to one end of the brush) and clean out any hair that got caught in them. If that still doesn’t work you might want to consider getting a new CHM that has been bearing modified, which will be less work in the long run. I got my bearing modified CHM from Vic (link is in an update in the post) and an AeroVac bin from iRobot and my roomba is working better now than he ever did before. The Aerovac bin makes a huge difference – prior to getting that my roomba struggled with the fur my dog left everywhere, now it has no problem handling it and our floors stay clean.
john | Jun 16, 2010 | Reply
Thanks John, I’m gonna take it apart and try to clean it all again and if that don’t work I’ll try the modified CHM. I don’t even have pets so there was no hair in there but there was dust so I’ll try again
Raye | Jun 16, 2010 | Reply