Tuesday 16 October 2012

ROOMBA-ING PART DEUX

After trying some basic runs of the Roomba 561 with the default modes of spot cleaning and docking I tried to program it using very basic codes sent through via a serial port communication software. 

I used the following hardware;
  1. Roomba 561 robot 
  2. a FTDI USB cable 
  3. my laptop, ACER V3-571G
I used Windows after a long time for developmental purposes. I followed this tutorial and installed Realterm in Windows-7.


The following videos are the outcomes of my efforts.



Two things which need a precaution are,
  1. Realterm has to be used in XP (SP3) compatibility mode in Windows-7 
  2. The Baud has to be set to 115200 in the Realterm software for Roomba 5XX series 
A special thank you goes to Bill Morris (bill at iheartengineering.com) for helping me procure the FTDI USB cable and ship it to India.