• Hacked roomba can now auto dock and charge

    Josh Starnes • 04/15/2018 at 17:55 • 0 comments

    Basically the Beer Butlers home place will be the charge base, so it is important it still flawlessly docks. After some tinkering when I started sending commands to the roomba through the serial port, I was able to get it to dock at anytime. The body and compressor of the Beer Butler sit on top of this base. It really is that simple!

  • Swagging the Copper tubing to connect to the Compressor

    Josh Starnes • 04/15/2018 at 17:51 • 0 comments

    If you do this project be sure to buy a swage tool kit, it allows you to flare copper tubing to slide over another piece making them easy to solder.

  • Installing the Analog Thermostat

    Josh Starnes • 04/15/2018 at 17:49 • 0 comments

    Excellent position I can adjust temp from the  top by just lifting the lid !

  • Salvaging every part of the refrigeration system I can use

    Josh Starnes • 04/15/2018 at 17:47 • 0 comments

    Ok I salvaged the last piece which no doubt is very important.

    the required stages are as follows

    1. Compress the refrigerant 

    2. Leaves the compressor from the discharge tube and raises the temperature to over 100 degrees

    3. Discharge goes to radiator
    This cools the hot high pressure refrigerant

    4.the refrigerant moves from the radiator to the drier or expansion tube.

    5. The refrigerant is pushed through the small tube as a liquid.

    6. The small tube opens up to the evaporator

    7. The liquid expands into a gaseous state rapidly as it passes into the larger space of the evaporator.

    8. After the evaporator the compressor vacuums the refrigerants into the compressor.

  • Tracing the cooling path

    Josh Starnes • 04/15/2018 at 17:43 • 0 comments

    So we need to make sure we give the compressor the same load as when it was in the fridge. I pulled out the evaporator ( the cold part)  and carefully traced the path and measured to find how long the evaporate coil needs to be.

    The small end on the evaporator is a restriction to keep pressure up, once it pushed through this capillary it passes through the dryer and then the condenser again to repeat the process.

    I simple make the copper tubing the same length as the factory made their path to maintain the level of efficiency that the factory intended.  Hmm I think I voided the warranty.

  • making the condensor and evaporator coils

    Josh Starnes • 04/15/2018 at 17:38 • 0 comments

  • pull the thermostat for the compressor

    Josh Starnes • 04/15/2018 at 17:35 • 0 comments

    Tada

  • pull the compressor from the fridge

    Josh Starnes • 04/15/2018 at 17:33 • 0 comments

    aaaaand done

  • Testing the compressor performance before we go further

    Josh Starnes • 04/15/2018 at 17:24 • 0 comments

    Alright time to test! I need to make sure the fridge works well or using the parts for the robot are pointless. First thing I noticed from visual inspection is there is no external radiator... Hmm maybe it's inside? Maybe it's small enough it doesn't need one. Anyways I'm running it for 20 minutes and one hour marks to measure temperature. 


    Before applying power to the compressor

    At 20 minute check in, the realistic time people want to have their beverages! We are down to 41 degrees.

    1 hour mark, Boom! Super cold beer!  26 degrees. Of course, I will adjust the thermostat but it is analog so there is no markings for what temp it shuts the compressor off. I will likely stop it at 36 degrees.

  • Diagram of New setup with Compressor on Roomba

    Josh Starnes • 04/15/2018 at 17:17 • 0 comments