Comments on: Build a Roomba Serial Tether

By: iRobot Roomba passe l’aspirateur pour moi » ZedTuX On R00t

iRobot Roomba passe l’aspirateur pour moi » ZedTuX On R00t — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:19:28 +0000

[...] Il existe même un bouquin intitulé Hacking Roomba, des vidéos de hack, ou de chat assis dessus, des tutoriels divers comme par exemple pour construire son propre port série pour Roomba… [...]

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:24:44 +0000

How do you send commands to it.

Like for the Create it says you can do the (136) 9
to make it home (Something like that) but with OSX how would you actually send the command.

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:23:06 +0000

For fun… You truly don’t understand what a geek is. Just the satisfaction of knowing you can…

In more serious sense you could use it as a telepresence robot or other things. It is basically a Create without a vacuum but it can’t hold nearly as much weight.

By: Paul Schuster

Paul Schuster — Sat, 09 May 2009 18:21:04 +0000

Why? Why would you want to hack a roomba? For program modification? To emulate robotic concepts… What?

By: kdmcmullan

kdmcmullan — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:06:17 +0000

These pinouts are not the same as those in the “iRobot Roomba Serial Command Interface (SCI) Specification” document. It gives:

1 Vpwr
2 Vpwr
3 Rx
4 Tx
5 DD
6 Gnd
7 Gnd

It also tells is that the diagram is looking into the socket from the outside. The pins numbers given here are, by comparison, back-to-front. What concerns me most, though, is that here, pin 4 is not even used! This pin might be either transmit or receive, depending on which diagram you consider to be back-to-front.

By: Spike

Spike — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:24:08 +0000

Excellent book and website Tod!

We have had some problems soldering the ‘inexpensive’ 7-pin mini-DIN plugs but found a source of 8-pin to open-ended leads. We got these from a company in the UK called Lindy Electronics. The relevant webpage is .

I have no financial interest in this company.

By: todbot

todbot — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:32:27 +0000

Hi Jeff, All reports I’ve seen say that the 550 should work fine with all the Roomba hacking stuff. If you’re using the RoombaComm code, I suggest you get the latest version of the RXTX java serial library, as the one that I have inside the RoombaComm zip is getting old and may be causing you problems (especially if you’re on Mac OS X 10.5) What OS are you on? If you’re on Windows, go to http://roombadevtools.com/ and try the SCITester program as an alternate test tool.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 19:41:31 +0000

Hi, I have your book and have trying to use my computer to connect with my Roomba 550, the roombacomm program works
Everything comes up ok.. but in controlling the Roomba only some of the buttons work or they all start the roomba forward, can’t turn or read sensors.
( lucky the stop button works.)
I am using the Create Robot Serial Cable… maybe that will not work correctly with Roomba 550 ????

By: Jane

Jane — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:50:48 +0000

Thank you! Good advice! Actually this site has got me interested in what you are doing! I’ve hit some good sites along these lines as a result and I’m intrigued. LOL I think I’ve got my fingers in too many pies.

By: todbot

todbot — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:42:25 +0000

Hi Jane, Sparkfun sells the RooStick and the iRobot Create Serial Cable will do the same job. Neither of those, nor will any Roomba things, work with your Pfaff sewing machine I'm afraid. It's just a coincidence they use the same connector. However, I bet there are other folks like you who want to hack their Pfaff and make it do cool new things. Do a web search for "Pfaff hacking" or similar phrases; you might find someone has written up as a blog post exactly what you want to do. Good luck.