Page 348 - Hacking Roomba

Chapter 14 — Putting Linux on Roomba 329

FIGURE 14-14: Portable battery-powered Wi-Fi hard drive ready to go

To set the WL-HDD up for use with Roomba, gather up the battery pack, USB-to-serial
adapter, and Roomba serial tether and place them all in a slightly larger enclosure. Figure 14-15
shows a plastic sandwich holder (grocery store again) holding all three, with their cables
sticking out of a drilled hole in the side to permit them to easily plug in. This rather bulky
assemblage can then be placed on top of Roomba and secured with a bit of Velcro or double-
sided tape as in Figure 14-16. Carrying around the 15 feet of cable in the serial tether is rather
silly, as well as the conversion to RS-232 signal levels and back again. A more svelte design
would bypass the length and levels of the example shown here. A RooStick is almost perfect, if
only the drivers existed. The cellphone sync cable hack mentioned in the next chapter is also
possible and would be quite tiny.

For another take on the WL-HDD battery pack, with an even better enclosure, see www
.aximsite.com/boards/showpost.php?p=1105083.