At 1:33 pm EST on November 19, 2008 I received another i-Que Personal Robot that is need of repairs. I named him Unit 2 and he joins his 11 month old "brother" Unit 1 (which I didn't name until after Unit 2 arrived). I purchased Unit 2 knowing that there were problems with his drive train not allowing the robot to turn. I got a good deal on it from someone in my Yahoo i-Que Robot group. I bought this robot primarily as an experimental unit in hopes to learn more about this robot and maybe even enhance it's capabilities.

The one thing that I found that was a surprise is that he won't recharge even when he says he's going to. His Green light doesn't go on. If I press the base's slow charge/start button it goes on but when I release the button, it goes off. Doing some tests and exchanging the batteries and chargers between both i-Que robots, I determined there was a problem with Unit 2's charging system. This issue was fixed after complete disassembly to diagnose the movement problems. Seems maybe a connector may have got loose in shipping. Once reassembled, all connectors firmly in place, the robot charged normally on the included docking base.

I was thinking before I got the bot that I would set him up with the robotic voice instead of the more natural sounding voice. Well, when I started him up, that's the voice he spoke in after I put in his batteries! This shows that even after a few months of non-use, the robot did remember it's previous owner's information and settings. I did eventually reset the robot via the communicator but then I changed the default voice back to the monotone robot voice. Unit 1 is kept set at the default voice. This way I can tell who's talking if both units are active. I have Unit 1 set to channel 0 and Unit 2 set to channel 1 on the communicator, so as not to interfere with commands from one or another. Though it would be neat to control them both in unison from the same controller for things like dances. That'll be awhile though, as I'm having problems finding a drive belt for the movement problem in Unit 2.

Speaking of which, I looked more closely at the belt and when I went to clean it off, I see that the hair was burned and melted a bit into the belt. Also it appears that some of the teeth on the belt are missing. At one part, the belt was warn down so thin I'm concerned it's gonna break. So he needs a new belt. Anyone know where to find one? The other side is pretty bad. Here's photos and specs.

Here's how bad it was:

Note that the photos below show the GOOD side of the belt (for best reference).

Wheel, gearbox gear (belt goes on the small gear in center) and belt:

Close-Up of bad belt:

Specs:

Belt:

3.75" circumference (outer area of belt)
.125" Pitch
1/4" width
1/16" profile thickness (not including the teeth)
1/8" profile thickness of the teeth
1/16" spacing between teeth
Approx. 1" in diameter

Wheel inner gear (wheel is the larger item with orange treads):
10/16" Diameter not including teeth
20 teeth


Gearbox gear inner gear:
1/4" Diameter not including teeth
10 teeth


Both gears have a tooth profile height of 1/16", inner tooth gap of 2mm and outer tooth gap of 3mm.

I would need two of these belts.

If anyone can help, please contact me.

Thanks!