Time for Maintenance of "Robotina" Maytronics S200

Flying Tivo · Jul 18, 2022

A little history, Robotina was bought 3 years ago from a seller on Ebay. He listed it as a Refurbished unit and got about 200 bucks savings from a new one. At first few months Robotina would live 1-3 days underwater. I got lazy and let her live 24/7/365 except for few minutes while wash down and to clean basket once a week. Also during the first few months the Belgian Waffle "Mona" got into a relationship with Robotina's Cable and chewed it up several times. Which i had to repair and the cable grew shorter every time. Now is about half length from original. After reading some post by @JoyfulNoise Matt robot rusting useless about a year in, it had me worried about mine. So this weekend got to work and found it interesting, so here we go:

This is what it looks like before dis-assembly

Took the plug apart and no water intrusion detected, so Robotina 1-0.
This part was relubed with Magic Lube2 1.5 years ago, so it held up.

Opened the big box and BINGO! No water intrusion either, Robotina 2-0
The O-ring seal was in As New condition but with a lot of emulsified Silicone around it. Cleand it all up!

Electronics look in great shape, Robotina 3-0

Time to open up the Tracks/Roller motor, the O-ring looked great but with a lot less silicone than the box O-ring. Still no water intrusion. Robotina 4-0.

Now time to re-assemble and lube the O-rings with Magic Lube2. I went ballistic with this, didnt want to come back to bite me. I applied a wdge of silicone where the o-ring would seat and on the o-ring itself.

Flying Tivo · Jul 18, 2022

Did the same with the big box o-ring, a big wedge of silicone on the base and on the ring and the lid.

Didn't want to mess with the impeller motor, had some corrosion on the outside but minimal, since no water intrusion was observed, i left it alone.

So here it is all put back together.

Flying Tivo · Jul 18, 2022

Now as for the swivel, there was some water intrusion. This part was also re-lubed about 1.5 years ago.

Got it all cleaned up and relubed, there seams to be some corrosion of the gold plates, probably due to my repairs on the cord and shorting with water intrusion on the repairs, which were several.

I also went overboard with the Magic Lube2 on this part.

Now Robotina is all back together again. Robotina 5-1, so i tought. :hammer:

After her first Dive, the blue light is not working.

Robotina 5-2.
So will probably open it up again and might tackle the impeller motor seal.
I did change the bottom plastic flanges that were all beaten up. I do have the new cable, rollers, tracks, flap but they are still holding up.
I did remove the tracks and lubed the plastic bushing on the front and rear wheel bushings, there was some ware. The small gear that drives the front track had a lot of play but not worn, so i wrapped some silicone tape so the gear would fit snugly.

Hope this helps

JoyfulNoise · Jul 18, 2022

Great thread Felipe!! Nice that it’s all sealed and dry.

look30 · Jul 18, 2022

Can you show what you did on the gears ? Also is Robotina back to life ?

Flying Tivo · Jul 18, 2022

Yes, she is back to life, but no light to shine her way around!

The front and back wheels are held by a single screw each, and run over a plastic bushing, all i did was lube the inside bushing, no science around it. The only thing is the front brush gear which fits loosely around the shaft but was fitted with teflon tape to make it snug. Sorry no pictures of that.

wireform · Jul 18, 2022

The Teflon tape won't last long with friction nut those parts may be available.

Flying Tivo · Jul 18, 2022

wireform said:
The Teflon tape won't last long with friction nut those parts may be available.

Maybe i didnt explain well enough. The shaft was wrapped with 6-7 layers of teflon tape so the gear would fit on the shaft snug, there is no friction since the shaft is hexagonal. Just as a space filler between parts.

wireform · Jul 18, 2022

Flying Tivo said:
Maybe i didnt explain well enough. The shaft was wrapped with 6-7 layers of teflon tape so the gear would fit on the shaft snug, there is no friction since the shaft is hexagonal. Just as a space filler between parts.

Got it

wireform · Jul 18, 2022

Flying Tivo said:
Maybe i didnt explain well enough. The shaft was wrapped with 6-7 layers of teflon tape so the gear would fit on the shaft snug, there is no friction since the shaft is hexagonal. Just as a space filler between parts.

Just thinking about the hexagonal shaft which means that didn't wear so why was it important to tighten it up. I have seen similar instances where the fit was intentional for some misalignment

Flying Tivo · Jul 18, 2022

wireform said:
fit was intentional for some misalignment

I thought so too, we will see.

look30 · Jul 18, 2022

Mine is doing the back and forth a few times then shuts down , I am wondering if that’s because the cogs are worn out , they are very loose so they might seize. I ordered a new unit but I would love to fix my 3.5 year old also. Could the cog seizing trigger the unit to shut off ?

JoyfulNoise · Jul 18, 2022

look30 said:
Mine is doing the back and forth a few times then shuts down , I am wondering if that’s because the cogs are worn out , they are very loose so they might seize. I ordered a new unit but I would love to fix my 3.5 year old also. Could the cog seizing trigger the unit to shut off ?

Not really. Pull the motor, I'll give 50/50 odds it's got water in it and/or the impeller motor is full of carbon gunk ...

Flying Tivo · Jul 18, 2022

Yup, open it up.

look30 · Jul 20, 2022

And Joyful was 100% on point, I opened and there was water inside, not a lot , just like droplets, but because a dumb design it managed to corrode the motor and probably led to the failure. The dumb part Im referring to is sticking a pouch of desiccant under the motor which sound like a good idea until the pouch gets soaked and started corroding the motor, They should have added this pouch in the lowest point where water is accumulating and away from any metal.
I added some pictures , not the greatest cause I was so pi**ed when I saw that desiccant BS I forgot to document the step by step process. I am pretty sure that I could have saved the motor if the package wasn't just stuck under it full of salty water.
This thread should be actually pinned because apparently we should do this check and apply sealant at least once every year or season IMHO.

JoyfulNoise · Jul 20, 2022

Yup. Classic Maytronics motor assembly failure. It’s toast and can’t be fix.

Maytronics refuses to make any of the internal motors available. While you can actually rebuild the impeller motor cheaply (I did), the drive motor can not be rebuilt and it is permanently locked onto that plastic flange so there’s no way to get the motor off the flange without destroying it. It’s intentionally engineered failure so that you have to either buy a new motor assembly ($450) OR buy a new robot.

Maytronics SUCKS in my opinion for that very reason. I can not NOT RECOMMEND their products enough.

look30 · Jul 20, 2022

Hi Joyful, I saw that same part on Ebay and here : Maytronics Drive Motor, 9991210-ASSY I might bit the bullet and get it.
For that desiccant pouch I would say , take it out of there and tape it somewhere else so the salt water doesn't stay close to metal.

JoyfulNoise · Jul 20, 2022

I’ve looked. Those parts on eBay are coming from overseas and you have to look carefully at the description as many of them say “non working” … $30 for shipping and asking $60 for a part that might not work.

tj__r · Aug 12, 2022

Kind of interesting that a 3 year warranty on that motor is offered for $18.99...

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Time for Maintenance of "Robotina" Maytronics S200

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