Stewie, NOOO!!!

My Roomba 530 for the ages broke down the day after he had that burning smell issue I wrote about before. He started out okay, then after a few minutes, he stopped in the living room and reported the Clean Roomba's Brushes error. I checked the brushes, they were clean, I cleaned them again anyway, made sure he was clear and started him again. He repeated the error, and again. I called iRobot and they were troubleshooting with me until I leant down to put the brushes back in and said on the phone, "I smell a burning smell." They told me not to take chances at all and said they were sending me a new one.

It was sent. Meanwhile I opened him up to have a look and located the source of the smell. It was indeed in the cleaning head module. His is the black one and its bearings got jammed with debris. This is a flaw in the design of all roomba 500's and 600's with the black cleaning head module so if you have one, bear this in mind.

I switched in a used but working red cleaning head module and set Stewie to work in my brother's room which you can see here in this video. He did fine...but now there comes the dilemma. The replacement arrived the other day, all white 531 {my mom named "her" Gracie and is thrilled with her! She does a great job, gets stuck less too}.

I can't part with Stewie. I can't send him back to be scrapped. I owe him too much! He's the one who introduced me to these adorable, and so useful robots. My floors have never been cleaner and they're just so much fun.

Stewie isn't perfect. He gets stuck more easily than my other roombas, and of course now there's this issue with the bearings, I have not thrown away his original cleaning head module, as I am planning on its repair. But it's all this that gives him his personality. He's unique.

We will see what happens from here.