All right, let's check out the Robo made very quickly. The Auto vacuum cleaner. Oh yeah, this is like a ripoff of the Roomba or whatever cheaper sink. It's got a little bumper on there and it's got looks like optical ports around there.

If you don't know how these things work, they I believe like this is the charging stand. These are little charging contacts like this and you might think, well, how does it get all around the room, go around and all that sort of stuff and then make its way back precisely to where it charges back up on these pads here. These are reasonably nice little rubber feet and stuff like that on the wheels here, but it's going to like slip and stuff like that so it can't just drive out, drive around the room for hours and hours, and then come back to precisely the same spot because if you get any wheel slippage and stuff like that, it wouldn't be accurate. So it's actually got a little like infrared typer transmitter on here and it can determine its location in the room and then come back so it can get roughly back to where it is.

I mean I Almost certainly tracking where it's going and stuff like that. but to correct for all the accumulated errors and stuff like that, it can navigate its way back like this and and go in and come and recharge with the pads on the bottom there. So yeah, what this thing is I don't know. It looks like an additional transmitter.

it's got like a lens it's got to lend in there. You see that which basically gets a 360 as a 360 degree lens. so it's looking all around the room using that particular lens and there's another little so does it transmit out there and then receives it back I'm not sure how that fits in the operation of the thing. Mm-hmm and that's power from 2 D cell batteries and you'll notice that there is a matching lens on here.

Here it is 360 degree lens. you've probably seen these on now the back of the TV backlight teardown I did this. They did do this. shine a LED Engels off the board and then it reflects outwards like that to give you the nice even back white pattern on your the you know the back of your LED backlit LCD but it can also be used to receive as well.

so it can be used to transmit as well as that receive in a complete 360 degree rotational 2d map right across your arm. you know around. the robot now is not much inside that looks like we have a little micro little like 14 pin job. You can tell because it's got a sticker on there so it's obviously programmed and well the there must be another board up in there, which one, There's two infrared LEDs in there when he Mets out the top which then of course goes into the little lens like that.

There we go but we'll see your LED actually sits in in there and then it emits a bear. you know, pretty even pattern all the way. 360 degrees around that. So what is one sticking out the front? Odds? yes, some system thing.

but yeah, there ain't much in that puppy at all. And that micros couldn't be bothered. Put the micro lens on his a Sonic SP 25 8:11 The little 8 pin micro from Sonic's what? Like a Taiwanese microcontroller manufacturer? What? They're obviously really pinching the pennies there. Gee, it's the SH Robot M7 Double 8 Chung Daeun version 1.0 Be afraid.

Be very afraid. Anyway, this is inside the charging dock. that's you know that's neat and tidy. There's nothing wrong with them.

whatever heat shrink over there and oh, they're doing ok. Nothing wrong with that at all. So we've got a micro up on the top board. There is that also a let's check the brand out on that and that's a whole tech job.

Why they're not sticking with the one brand of micro? I Don't know. Yeah, like cheese. it's making you life harder. Penny-pinching again, obviously.

So that is just driving the LCD on there for all your stuff. We've got another lens on top there, so they're obviously like pulse-code in the lead time in information. but you know I mean it's the speed of light. It's not like they're using ultrasonics to, you know, like triangulate position and stuff like that.

But yeah, there's some sort of pulse information. Maybe I could power it up and have a look. Once again, they've just got a single wire LED in there. infrared LED with the same exact same lens system.

That's interesting. They got some sort of lens and it looks like some sort of lamp in there I think doing some sort of detection? Yeah, look, it's right next to looks like some LEDs here. Or maybe you know, some photo trainees or something like that. Um, what are we trying to do there? That's some sort of like, you know, toy floor type detection.

I didn't stop like dirt detection or anything like that. I think Hmm. Actually, they've got the same sensors in three other places around this front edge as well. So, and they're actually angled.

Yep. so we have an infrared transmitter and an infrared receiver in there. There's a lithium-ion battery pack whom is going to be crusty as measured dust collector. I'm curious.

Like a vet, you know they've got to filter in there and whatnot. I'm a bit curious. Lee Look, it's got that infrared type door to match the infrared around the side here. That's interesting.

So they're obviously doing some type of, you know, like infrared dust detection. Oh, how much is? Yeah, well. it doesn't really seem to be anything inside there though to transmit through. Huh? Sure, they've done that for a reason.

Here we go. When they go, go all the screws out, whoo and up we're in like Flynn Oh yeah, baby, there we go. Missy Robot: Why is everywhere? This is interesting. Check it out.

Lift that off to the look. Piezo transducers that go on the underside, you probably? Yeah, the contacts are up in there and that goes into the cavity of the the dust collector. laughing. So they're based on how much dust is in there.

they're armed, obviously emitting our high-frequency into there and determining you know and the properties change depending on the dose they want to be. they be using as a transmitter and one as a receiver most likely and so they can figure out how much dust is in there. It's kind of interesting, which we think it's more interesting. Check it out.

There were actually two boards in here which go back-to-back like that, which each one dries a piezo transducer. Those boards look identical, so that's interesting. Like I Thought you know they'd be transmitting on one, maybe using the other one as a receiver. you know I felt as crude as it might be I Thought that could possibly work so interesting.

So whether or not these are just receivers and they've got a I guess like you've got the eye, maybe they're using the motor in there and you know the dust and everything else that changes the acoustic properties based on that, but then why would you need to? You wouldn't really need to then. So it's doing some sort of stereoscopic. you know, type sent in with a piezo transducer element look rubber surround on there. They're isolating that as well.

So maybe they are doing the acoustic properties based on the motor. but and then a stereo scopic again. Anyway, I'm sure there's lots of software processing behind that that that is absolutely fascinated by the way the chip on there Justin LMR three to four. So yeah, they're You know they're not transmitting anything, they're just using these as some sort of sensing.

and they'd be doing that filtering as well on those two boards. So suppose you want to play along at home. There we go. And another thing that might back up my theory that they're both Tsar Detectives is that left D and right D for detector.

That would be my guess. this is a cable going off to the board. All right. What else are we got on this thing? We've got two.

these would be stepper motors inside here to drive the wheels. This one here just drives the spinny brush thing under there. so it's just a Joe Bloggs DC motor and we got ourselves two micro switches there and over there. So it's basically you know I guess if you hit it straight on, it's going to press too.

but you get the timing differences between them and or if it just bumped on this side, you'd only get the one micro switch activating, etc. etc. As far as the mainboard goes, I mean it looks reasonably engineered. There's nothing wrong with that at all.

Um, it's certainly not kind of shoddy by any stretch we've got once again, that's probably some weird ass hole tech processor or something like that. We're going to another embedded micro over there controlling that looks more power stuff. Anyway, we've got some motor drivers over here and you know this is doing all your heavy duty Er processing and figuring everything out. and I know you want to know what that processor is.

Let's find out and that is an N XP ARM processor LPC 21 at 32 for you LPC samples a Land M78 P 2 V 9 what bus and why is it socketed like they're using what 3 4 different types of microbes or something in this thing? Crazy. And the top boy uses an Ft Micro 12, C 5202 or whatever it is and yet another brand micro like. They're chosen a different micro for every application in this thing. Wow that's it.

it's not I must add. Like different people, different groups working on different boards and they all chose their own flavoured micro. or whatever or not, they were penny-pinching every cent on every single application and inside this thing. I Don't know I've got another modal down in there.

Just a DC motor for the up brush thing. That little brush that just spins around gets into little nooks and crannies and stuff like that and then sweeps it back under for the main collection. Well I do have to light up the bottom of this thing I like I don't know I mean it comes out the bottom there. These sensors here are infrared sensors.

Going to take one of those out? We've got four of those. as I said, but just lighting up that part there. What does that achieve? I Don't know then when all four of those of the large transmission and receiver boards at the infrared to infrared LED Infrared training and it looks like they got a little speaker tucked away in there to make it go beep, ping And there's our main drive wheel. has a complicated little thing complete with all original hair.

yeah, Pioneer rubber belt. Cole I Guess yeah. Anyway, there is our stepper motor that drives the wheel. so yeah, obviously they know how many turns it's gone in.

Then they've got the reduction mechanism are there is sensing faint looks like that look. There's another infrared transmitter and receiver that makes more sense. There you go, they're counting the revolutions there. see the little life slots in there and we've got an infrared I'm double.

a photo white ran LED in the photo transistor there and that just counts the number of pulses. Don't rely on the bill. Bill could slip. There's a part number for the motor for those playing along at home.

So there you have it that's inside the what Is it? The Robo made? Oh yeah, Rumba Ripoff I guess it. It's reasonably you well engineered. There's nothing you know. it's kind of built down on price somewhat, but you know it seems to be half reasonable quality.

I Don't know what it's our performance would be like I mean Tom said it broke on him so you know, probably got cheap-ass plastics or whatever in effort. Yeah, they've got a lot of effort to do that. All the different micros in there that was absolutely fascinating, but obviously the main Nxp are. my crowing in here is taking care of business.

It's tracking exactly where it's I got it's handling the communications with the transmitter and the charging station to get it back there to automatically charge up to know where it's gone back to. And as I said, there's going to be slippage on these wheels so it can't just go. Okay, I'm going to step X amount this direction to next mount this direction because by the time you go around the room ten times sweeping everything, taking a couple of hours as all those errors are going to accumulate, up and up, up and bingo you're going to miss your charging station if you try and backtrack even though you're recording all the steps. Try and backtrack it.

You find that you're right and I'm either out or half a meter out for your charging station or something like that. or you could be on the other side of the room. It could be that bad. So yeah, you've got to have those transmitters.

Where are they? Yeah, those transmitter infrared transmitters transmitting all over the room with the 360-degree sensor on top to know where it is and how to get back. Because that's the idea I mean the whole idea is that it's completely autonomous apart from having to empty the scene. Occasionally it's supposed to go back to us charging station, charge itself up and then you know go to sleep and then wake up the next morning and go off and do it store again. I Don't know, does anyone use these things I like apparently the route the room bizarre Roomba whatever you call that are ok I don't know.

Are these cheap? is any good? Let us know in the comments if you've got one and if they're actually useful. Hmm. and the bottom of that board. we got our classic extra tin in on the trace.

the edges to increase the start, decrease the resistance, increase the current handling that capability of that trace going right around from one side or the other just by a tad. done. A video on that somewhere. What the hell? What are they using this thing for? It's got to be obvious, it's just not coming to me all right.

I'll probe one of the driving transistors for one of the LEDs there I've got it set. There's like three different modes on this thing. I've got the switch down and there's I Don't know, is that I like full half off? I don't know. Anyway, I've got it all the way down and that's what we're getting.

spaced about 150 milliseconds. Well, there we go. 150 milliseconds apart or something like that and no surprises for finding a typical wire 38.5 k infrared carrier in there. that's typical of infrared carrier frequencies, but that really doesn't seem to change.

Not really. Anyway, you know you can go into great depth, but notes, it's pretty much it's pretty consistent. If we put the Led up to the middle sorry, the switch up to the middle position has it changed. Now it's down.

back down. it looks very similar. There might be subtle differences in there. this is right up the top.

full so and I yeah, the counts could be subtly different in there, but now I to me, don't see it I figured it out. That's the infrared. basically the power. Look at this, the amplitude drops so that's full down the bottom and then look I'm just adjusting that switch there so that looks just like it's a Apple cheating because that would correspond.

I'm measuring directly across the lead now so that would correspond directly through into the current through the lid. So though to be yet, that's the output so that's all she's doing alright. I'm probing both LEDs here because if you remember, we had one that was 360 degrees which is the top one and then we have the other one which just transmits out the front. Now the yellow waveform channel one.

There is the 360 degree one and you'll notice that they are different. There's a difference in there. This has got an extra sort of packet in here, so it's decoded different. so whether or not we can check that, these might be different at each period.

They're bloody touch screens, but you know we could go in there and decode to our hearts content. But yes, it's interesting that the front emitter is different from the 360-degree emitter, but that makes sense otherwise. why would you have to? So yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if they're subtly different. Doesn't look like it on the surface, but you never know your luck in the big city, so that's obviously you're sitting there like, well.

you turn it on and a transit. you just leave it on all the time. it's just continually transmitted. I Mean there's a lead.

What was the burst frequency? I Remember Anyway, it's not taking that huge amount of current. Use those two big Rd cells in there so they would last you know for a long time. you know, maybe a year or something. I Don't know, sir, just that you know, transmitting periodically like that beam yeah should get reasonable battery life, so that's interesting.

So even if this data is exactly the same each time, then that could still be useful because you could have one. Okay, it knows it's the front emitter, so it's obviously got a different code to the 360 degree in metal bloody touch screens. Again, so it you know that gives it essentially our positional like you know, line-of-sight type positional data Am I actually facing the sensor. You know if it's getting this front emitter one, that it knows it's facing the sensor.

If it's getting only getting this one, it knows it's on the other side, etc. so you know even that's useful. And this data could be individually coded per unit and matched up per machine, transmitter and robot. So yeah, you can have different robots in different rooms and or different areas and these are transmitters wouldn't interfere.

That's the theory. Anyway, now if we pair up and have a look at the charger transmitted aboard, it's got to our transmitters here. Slightly angled curiously like the very clear window over here. clear window over there but doesn't see it, so seams lined up with the edge of the that blocking plastic there, so it's rather unusual.

Anyway, we've got ourselves two. LEDs Again, let's check that out. and Bingo! This is what we get. Basically very similar to what we get before it looks like the data is not really changing Is it? they see a little bit of jittery on that? There's basically bugger all in that.

So if we scroll across like this, you can see that it's different here. So that's that's. certainly different. And there's our carrier.

Of course, that's 41 point 3 kilohertz I didn't measure the other one that precisely I don't think did I Anyway, are you yeah? I did. So this is a different carrier frequency. Okay, so it obviously knows that that is different and the code is slightly different. but as I said, it seems to be the same each time is nothing in that.

that's just your regular regular jitter. So that yeah, they're both identical. So both the Y are like I call it the mobile transmitter that you I get strategically placed somewhere else in the room that you want done and the base station I just output in the you note with two different leads to output just two different codes and that's it. It may appear to be a slightly different carrier frequency, so that's all significantly less sophisticated than I thought it would be.

Basically all it's doing is relying of course on recording how many steps it takes on each will in, you know, and it can backtrack. it's entire thing like that. And then there's just that. a home in infrared receiver on the charging station that has that interesting no dead window I Guess that's a quite a novel, simple way to do it.

You sort of. It's like a line following robot. you know it. Wiggles its way back and forth between those two codes either side and goes in and you know, heads all the way back to the center of the docking station.

So it's crude, but simple and probably quirks are quite well. I Don't know about the rumble one I've never looked at it, never used it or other ones on the market, but hey, it looks like they can do this. No problems at all because once the the robot just goes autonomously on its own going around and once it reaches the manual says 15% of the battery life left, then it goes into our return to base mode. So we just goes hunting around for that transmitter coming from the base station.

Now of course the base station was a different carrier frequency to that mobile virtual wall transmitter. and of course the virtual War transmitter had that the 360-degree one on top would stop the robot actually bumping into it. and then you know, screwing up because you don't want your robot bumping into you transmitter, which you strategically set up to point across a doorway or something like that to prevent access to that doorway. So it's I You know it's all fairly crude, but you know, rather interesting.

It probably works half reasonably well I Don't know if you got one of these Robo maids and did it you know, work reasonably well for you. If you've got a Roomba our other brand, let us know in the comments down below. But yeah, I'm just surprised by the simplicity of it all really. but that's all you need I Guess so I Hope you enjoyed that more detailed look at that teardown.

Thanks very much for Tom for sending that in. If you liked it, please give it a big thumbs up. Catch you next time.