Comments on: Please remove and clean Roomba’s Brushes

By: Raye

Raye — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:40:13 +0000

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

By: john

john — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:31:47 +0000

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.

By: Raye

Raye — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:23:19 +0000

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?

By: kevin

kevin — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 16:43:27 +0000

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!

By: mad

mad — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:23:17 +0000

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.

By: john

john — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:56:55 +0000

Hi Nick:

I only greased the teeth of the white gears and my Roomba has been behaving happily since.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:53:10 +0000

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!

By: G

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 22:36:15 +0000

WORKED LIKE A CHARM!!!!! THANK YOU. I WAS AT MY WITS END. MY ROOMBA SEEMS AS GOOD AS NEW!!!

By: Lynn

Lynn — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 22:26:23 +0000

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.

By: john

john — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:48:31 +0000

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.