Robot vacuum wheel, battery & gearbox teardown: interactive 3D teardown

All 9 steps

1. 1Take the bin out and tap the filter clean

   Press the bin release at the back of the robot’s top and pull the bin straight out backwards; empty it into a rubbish bag. Lift the filter out of the bin’s front face and tap it against the inside of the bag until no more dust falls. It is not washable: a new one goes in every 2 months, or sooner with pets. The bin has to be out before the cleaning head can come out later.

2. 2Turn it over and take the side brush off

   Turn the robot over onto the foam blocks. The side brush at the front right is held by one small screw in its hub, and unlike every other screw underneath, this one comes all the way out: undo it with the Phillips #1 and put it in the tray at once. Lift the brush off its hex shaft and pull the hair wound round the shaft with tweezers.

3. 3Open the brush guard and clear both brushes

   Pinch the brush guard’s two release tabs and swing the guard open on its hinge. Lift each brush by its capped end, then draw its square drive end out of its socket. Pull the cap off the end of each brush: the hair that winds round the pin under it is what most often stops the brushes turning. Clear it with tweezers, and the hair round the brushes themselves.

4. 4Loosen the bottom cover’s four captive screws trap

   The bottom cover is held by four Phillips #2 screws, and they are captive: once loose, each stops rising and stays in the cover. Turn each one until it no longer climbs, never further, then lift the cover off with all four in it and lay it on the mat. Under it are the battery, both wheel modules, the cleaning head, the side brush module and the front caster. Avoid this trap: A captive screw stops rising as soon as its thread is free, and it can look stuck. Treated like the side brush’s loose screw and levered out with a flat screwdriver, it tears through the thin plastic collar that keeps it in the cover: it springs out, rolls away, and the collar is gone for good, so the screw falls out every time the cover comes off and its hole no longer pulls the cover flat against the battery. Turn each screw only until it stops climbing, and lift the cover with all four still in it.

5. 5Lift the battery out by its two pull tabs

   The battery lies across the front, under where the cover was. It has no cable or plug: its contacts are pressed onto the robot’s by the cover, so with the cover off it lifts straight out by its two fabric pull tabs, one at each end. Lay it on the mat, away from screws and tools, with nothing metal across its contacts. With it out, nothing inside has power.

6. 6Lift the left wheel module out on its captive screws

   Loosen the wheel module’s three Phillips #1 screws until they stop rising: like the cover’s, they stay in the module. Lift the module straight out of its pocket by its wheel: there is no cable to undo, it plugs in as it seats. Pull the hair wound round its axle, between the wheel and the housing, with tweezers. A wheel that clicks, drops or will not turn means a new module, sold whole.

7. 7Close the guard and lift the cleaning head out

   Swing the empty brush guard shut so it cannot flap. The cleaning head is held by four more captive Phillips #1 screws, two at its front edge and two at its back: loosen them until they stop rising, then lift the head straight out of its pocket, the bin already out, and its connector slides out of its socket. Stand it on its right end on the mat, so its gearbox, at the left end, faces up.

8. 8Open the gearbox face up and clear its axles trap

   With the head standing on its right end, the gearbox cover faces up. Undo its six small screws into the tray and lift the cover straight off. Beside the motor’s small pinion, five gears are loose on fixed steel axles: lift them off one by one and lay them out in a row in the order they came off, so each goes back on its own axle. Hair and grit wind round the axles where the brushes’ drive shafts come through: pull it off with tweezers and wipe the axles clean. Avoid this trap: Stand the head on its gearbox end, or hold it with the gearbox facing down, and undo the six screws, and as the head comes away from the cover, the gears slide off their axles and drop out onto the mat. Some look alike but are not: put back in the wrong places, they mesh badly, grind and wear, and the brushes stall again. Always open the gearbox face up, lift the cover straight off, and lay the gears out in the order they came off.

9. 9Unplug the bumper harness, then lift the top shell off trap

   Turn the robot upright on the blocks. Pop the faceplate off from the bin opening with the flat pry tool and lift it away. Under it, the top cover is held by 13 screws of three lengths: ten 5 mm Phillips #1 round the rim, one 7.5 mm #1 at the front and two 5.5 mm Phillips #2 in the middle; give each length a well of its own. The bumper’s three-wire harness runs from the receiver on top of the bumper through a slot in the top cover to the main board: unhook it from the slot and pull its plug straight up with tweezers, then lift the top cover off. Avoid this trap: With all 13 screws out, the top cover feels free, but the bumper’s harness is still hooked in its slot and plugged into the main board. Lifted, the cover drags the harness up with it, the plug is torn off its socket at an angle, and the socket’s three pins bend or its solder joints crack. The bumper then cannot report what its receiver sees, and a bent socket is hard to plug into again. Unhook the harness from the slot and pull the plug straight up first, then lift the cover.

What you need

• Phillips #1 screwdriver · side brush, wheel module, cleaning head, gearbox, top
• Phillips #2 screwdriver · the cover’s captive screws and two top screws
• Flat plastic pry tool · for the faceplate
• ESD tweezers · for hair and the harness plug
• A side brush, filters and brushes · a replenishment kit
• A magnetic screw tray · twenty screws that come out, in five kinds

Questions

Safety

Take the robot off its dock and unplug the dock before you turn it over. Lift the battery out before anything else inside comes out, never lever it or lay a screwdriver across its contacts, and take an old pack to a battery recycling point, never the household bin. Hair and grit cut fingers on a spinning brush: never run the robot with a cover, a cap or the guard off.

• Lithium-ion batteries: never bend, puncture or pry a battery with metal. A damaged cell can go into thermal runaway: it smokes, catches fire and can explode. Discharge it below 25% first; if it swells, hisses, smokes or gets hot, stop and move it somewhere safe.
• Static (ESD): work on an anti-static mat with a grounded wrist strap; a spark you cannot feel can kill a chip.
• Power off: switch the device off and unplug its charger before you open it, and disconnect the battery before touching anything else inside.

About this teardown

3D Spatial Reconstruction: Models are engineered from factual hardware measurements to visualize internal layouts, screw lengths, and hidden cable traps before you open your device. Always verify cable routing on your specific hardware revision.

The robot is a generic one of our own design, built the way the Roomba 500 and 600 series are, with no maker’s logo or artwork: 340 mm across and 90 mm tall, like a Roomba 600. Its layout, the four captive screws of the bottom cover, the loose screw of the side brush, the three captive screws of each wheel module and the four of the cleaning head, the battery’s pull tabs and pressed contacts, the 72 mm wheels, the four cliff sensors and the bumper harness follow iRobot’s service manual and owner’s guides and iFixit’s Roomba guides. The top cover’s 13 screws of three lengths are those iFixit counts on a Roomba 650; the gearbox cover’s six screws follow iFixit’s Roomba 560 guide (other reports say five), and the gears’ count and sizes are our estimate.

Where the real machines differ from our brief: the brush gearbox holds plain spur gears loose on fixed steel axles, not a planetary set, and no source shows a brass pinion; what hair winds round is the axles, and the pins under the brushes’ end caps. Only the bumper’s three-wire IR harness has to come off before the top shell lifts; the cliff sensors’ and bump switches’ harness plugs in under the main board. The battery has no harness: the bottom cover presses its contacts home. The side brush’s screw comes right out on a Roomba 500 and early 600s, as on ours; on some later 600s it is captive too. On a real Roomba 500 or 600 the brush motor comes out of the gearbox first, on two screws, before the cover’s screws; and guides disagree on the bits, from Phillips #0 to #2, for the same screws.

Other robots differ. The Roomba e and i series have a bottom cover or battery door on five captive screws plus the side brush’s screw, wheel modules on two captive screws each, two rubber brushes, and a cleaning head sold only whole; there is no gearbox for an owner to open. On a Roborock S5 or S7 the side brush is held by a screw, the main brush lifts out under a latched cover with end caps where hair collects, the bottom panel comes off on 7 (S5) or 5 (S7) screws, and the battery is wired in: squeeze its plug’s catch and pull the plug, never the wires.

The 3D runs faster than real hands do. The faceplate’s six clips are our design.

Sources: iRobot: Roomba 500 Series Service Manual (the bottom cover’s four captured screws, the front two tightened first; the battery under the cover, its two pull tabs, twelve NiMH cells; the modules’ screws; four cliff sensors; error 2), iRobot: Roomba 500/600 Series Owner’s Manual (the brush guard’s tabs, the brushes’ caps and bearings, the cliff sensors wiped with a dry cloth, the filter replaced every 2 months), iRobot: Roomba 600 Series Owner’s Guide (care intervals; disconnect from the Home Base before maintenance; the battery’s handling and recycling), iRobot: Create 2 Open Interface, based on the Roomba 600 (the 72 mm wheels; the four cliff sensors: left, front left, front right, right), iRobot support: 600 series essential care (the side brush screw, filters tapped clean, not washed), iRobot support: how to remove the battery, all models (bottom covers and battery doors; refit every screw and the cover flush), RobotShop: Roomba 500 series repair guide, opening the robot (the faceplate, the top screws, the bumper harness through the top cover’s slot), iFixit: iRobot Roomba 581 teardown (captive module screws; the bumper’s three-wire harness; the cliff sensors’ harness under the main board), iFixit: Roomba 650 bumper sensor IR transmitter replacement (the top panel’s 13 screws: ten 5 mm PH1, two 5.5 mm PH2, one 7.5 mm PH1), iFixit: How to disassemble and clean a Roomba 560 (the cleaning head’s captive screws; the motor out, then the gearbox cover’s six screws), iFixit: Roomba 551 main brush motor replacement (the cover and module screws, Phillips #1 and #2), iFixit: Roomba 650 side brush motor replacement (the side brush screw, about 3.5 mm), iFixit: Roomba 650 main wheel replacement (three screws a wheel module that do not come all the way out), iFixit: Roomba 692 wheels replacement (four black cover screws; three wheel module screws, 12 mm), iFixit Answers: a Roomba that keeps giving error 2 (hair under the end caps; the gearbox’s gears slide off their axles; keep them in order), iFixit: Roomba e5 battery replacement (five captive bottom panel screws) and wheels replacement (two captive screws a module), iFixit: Roborock S5 battery replacement (the bottom panel’s screws; the battery’s plug squeezed and pulled), iFixit: Roborock S7 teardown (five bottom screws plus the side brush; connectors torn by pulling the cable), Roborock: S8 user manual (the side brush screw, the main brush cover’s latches and end caps; the battery only for skilled persons), Price: iRobot, Replenishment Kit for Roomba 600 series (a side brush, three filters, a bristle and a beater brush), $49.99 (October 2026), Price: iRobot, Left Wheel Module for Roomba 500–900 series, $29.99 (October 2026).

The 3D models, drawings and text are our own. The device shown is a generic one of our own design, not any one maker’s model.