Engineer-Poet's Journal: Stomach transplant

Over the last year or so, my Roomba became very ill and wouldn't eat. Charging it just made the battery hot, and it would only run a few minutes. Without treatment, it was not going to have a normal life.

I located a donor stomach at batteryspace.com. It arrived yesterday, and I performed surgery on the battery pack last night. After soldering the terminals onto the new battery and screwing the case back together, I buttoned the patient up and connected the feeding wires for the first time in many months.

It doesn't look like much is happening. The unit itself is cool as a cucumber even after 9 hours. But a brief test off the charger showed a green power light, and a full initial charge should take more like 12-15 hours. The patient's prognosis looks good.

Update: No power difficulties, but it has trouble negotiating this carpet! At least it can do the kitchen.

good work doctor

[sillypixie]

Better make sure to keep the patient on an easily digestible diet for the first few days. No chocolate bar crumbs or potato chip fragments.... :)

Pix

Outcome not certain yet

[Engineer-Poet]

The patient took an electric feed for over 20 hours before pronouncing itself "full". I've not had the chance to put the patient through tests yet; Ms. Fuzzbutt is camped out in the living room and I don't want to scare her. But it's looking good.

Did I mention that I got the extended run-time battery?

And one other thing

[Engineer-Poet]

Did you feel compelled to start the geek thread because of me, for relief, or were you just overdue?

(Knowing what you've been going through, I suspect relief.)