My Roomba got doused by an overflowing houseplant today. Once I calmed down, took everything apart and started drying it up. Motherboard is sitting outside now. As the water was dirty, how can I tell if I fried the mb vs. it just being dirty in places?
Before I got it apart, it would randomly start spinning it’s wheels but the Clean button wasn’t working.
My husband wasn’t ever a Roomba-supporter, so it’s either save her now or she’s gone forever. Is there any hope?!
Everything is looking good except the spinning brush (3 feet). Perhaps after a few days I’ll open her back up and re-clean. Thanks RobotShop!
Hi meri,
Welcome to the RobotShop Forum.
Sorry to hear about your Roomba. Good job on taking the robot apart though. If you need any help in putting it back together, take a look at the Ultimate Roomba Resource Center. There are repair guides available for the Discovery and 500 series Roombas, and in this case, how to open up and close up your Roomba.
What you want to do is use perhaps some contact cleaner on the motherboard to see if it’s just dust or dirt that’s accumulated on the board, or if they’re burn marks.
Since the board has dried out, have you tried putting it back together to see if its behavior improves? Clean up the board as best you can, and then try to see if the dry board will work when reinstalled in the robot.
Unfortunately we do not do board level diagnostics, and if it’s not something obvious to fix, you may have to look at replacing the board. You can find the motherboards for the 500 series Roombas here.
Hope this helps you out. Please let us know if you have any questions, and also how your robot turns out.
Thanks,
Glad to hear it! The robot is still able to clean without the side brush, so at least you have something to work with. The power to the side brush goes through the two springs on the underside of the motherboard, so make sure they are clean and hopefully you can get it working.
