Roomba virtualwall demo

thingiverse

To add some fun, I built my own virtual-wall clone for my two iRobot clean robots. They're quite affordable on eBay, so it was just a hobby project. To create your own, print the attached circuit and connect your electronics. The sample circuit can produce any signal you need, and there's also sample code for producing Roomba signals. I found this code at "http://adrianlombard.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/arduino-irobot-infrared-communication/", but I made a few changes. If you're using an attiny85, remember to burn the Bootloader in the Arduino IDE to get it running at 8 MHz (default is 1 MHz). This means you need to divide all timings by 2, like in the code's const int PULSE_WIDTH = 5; // time between pulses, in microseconds. Since it's usually 10µs. Lastly, be aware that the MC7805CT supports input voltages from 5V to 18V, so I used a 9V block battery to power my virtual-wall. P.S. An update: be cautious with the 330 Ohm resistor for the IR diode; it may block the ATTiny's current. A higher resistor, like 2*330R, might work better.