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[Fleur]

I seem to be awesome at getting used Pleos that don't work properly :p  I just happen to think of them as rescues and I try and "help" them and make them better.  I had posted a while ago that I got an RB used from hawaii and she had some pretty bad skin issues.  The skin issues are the least of my worries right now.  When I turned her on the first thing I noticed was that her motors were very loud comapred to my other Pleos.  I let her wander around and I noticed that even when she wasn't moving, the motor noise continued.  It's almost like an Aibo that has DHS, the motor goes but the head doesn't move.  The only problem is that she moves fine.  The motor noise seems to be coming from her front shoulders and when I checked to see if her neck wires were in place and I could feel them so I am not sure what is going on.  When I pressed her power button to power her down even as she was going into the back in the box position and up until she shut off, the motors were still going.  Very strange.  Any advice would be very welcome.  My poor unlucky rescue Pleos

[RedwoodsMama]

 Hi sorry to hear about you "loud " pleo problem, Dont feel bad or alone, with 25 Pleos and many of them rescues, broken necks, bad skin, etc, I know all about "rescues" LOL. I think most everyone will agree, in this situation a short video is the only way to diagnose this problem properly. We need to hear and see the pleo in action.                    RWM

[Fleur]

Ok, I will make one as soon as I get home.  I was going to on my lunch when I ran home to get her but I ran out of time.  I hope it is nothing major, but I am sure it will be.  It is REALLY loud.... poor thing   I find it hard to keep up with 4 let alone 25!! I can only have 2 battery chargers plugged in at a time because I am out of room on the surge protector..

[kat]

What stage of development is she in?  I know she is about a year old but how much was she used before being left to sit and then sold on to you?  Pleo rb's do tend to be a bit loud motor wise in the beginning but it does usually quieten down after they progress through development into the adult stage.   As RWM says a video would help immensely to see exactly what your talking about.  The motors for the neck do sit in the body of the pleo at about shoulder height so it does sound like from your description that the motors your hearing are the neck ones.  If her neck is moving ok it may be nothing to worry about.  It could be that she is a bit louder motor wise due to the holes in her skin too.  The skin does dampen down the noise of a pleo quite a bit.  Naked pleos are very loud so it makes sense that one with holly skin would be a bit more noisy than normal too.  Does she have skin holes close to where the sound seems to be coming from?  
These are just a few things to thin about but a video will make all the difference to being able to pin point if there is an issue and what to try to do about it

[Fleur]

I am not sure but she seems like she is an adult.  She is very well used but most of the damage to the skin is in her tail.  She doesn't make normal Pleo movement noises and what I find most odd is the fact that it's just as loud even when she is not moving at all.  I will post video as soon as I get home, maybe an hour or so.

EDIT: Here is the link, notice how the motor noise isn't there when I first boot her up and then maybe a second or two after it starts.  At the end when i power her down you can hear how it keeps going even when she is shutting down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMXtouePUDs&feature=g-upl

[Crewella]

From my limited experience, it sounds as though one of the joints is struggling to find its position .... but where or why is hard to tell.  When I took Trooper apart, all the times I put him back together wrong (position sensor (pot) wrong, cable not threaded properly ..... etc), there were motor noises like that.  Having said that, if there is no obvious problem, I'd leave it be for now ........ there may or not come a point where a problem asserts itself, but if the Pleo RB seems to be functioning OK for now it seems a bit drastic to pull it apart?

[kat]

I agree with Crewella.  It does sound like something is out of place but as Crewella says if she is still functioning fine then it's probably not worth opening her up to try and find out what just yet. 

[Talon]

I've heard lots of odd pleo sounds but this one takes it. It does sound something like an Aibo with DHS. Forgive my description but she sounds like she's revving her engines in preparation for takeoff. Poor Cloey! Anyway I hope it doesn't lead to further problems. Just by chance do you notice any area of her body that is getting unusually warm? Perhaps you could use her ummm temprature to see if any of her motors are under stress and making all this noise.
Talon

[RedwoodsMama]

I agree with what was said above, I have heard some of those noises before, but the fact that it keeps going is different. I think Talon is right with wanting to check and see if any body part, shoulder, neck etc is feeling warmer than uusal. I know from two pleo Rb I have, that problems they have with leg areas, the shoulder joint, leg gets warm, and with the clicking of motors, that is when I have to shut them down and stop as to avoid any potential damage. Other than that if your Pleo continues to work without warm joint areas and can walk and operate functionally, I would just leave her alone, unless you feel comfortable opening her up, it could be hard to find out exactly what is going on. Beautiful Pleo by the way, thanks for posting the video.                          RWM and the Kitten capers and Pleo  township of the Redwoods

[Fleur]

The noise is very loud in person and I am guessing that motor will get very hot.  I don't run her too long because of how loud it is.  I will run her a couple of battery cycles and see if she develops any more issues.  Her skin is in poor shape and almost deteriorating in certain areas so taking her skin off might prove to be a little difficult.  The seller seemed very attached to her and commented that she had played with her often.  I will take some close ups of the skin too.  It doesn't look like she was abused.

UPDATE::  It's her right front leg that's causing the problem.  I can tell by grabbing it and holding it vs. the other leg.  Applying force to it makes it stop sometimes.  If I hold in with my fingers around the knee joint I can feel the gears whirring away. It also appears she cannot move her knee. What should I do?  Can I peel back the skin on just one leg?

[Fleur]

Here are pictures of her skin. Her tail is the worst.

I also wanted to add the motor noise has stopped for the most part.  When she moves her knee forward it will start back up again sometimes and if I push her knee back it stops.  I think her knee is broken, she is moving it now but it doesn't feel like the other knee.  It has a larger bulge on the upper knee join than the other leg does and when I push the knee back it I can hear loose plastic.  I have already glued the holes in her skin so she at least looks more complete.  She is a sweetheart though and very cute <3  I love her pink eyes!  If I can just take the skin off at her leg I would like to take a look and see if I can figure out what the problem is.

[kat]

Can she walk?  and does she bend the knee joint at all?  To give you a bit of an idea of what the inside of the leg looks like so you can get an idea of what might be going on take a look at this video of my repairing Cato the pleo rb's rear right leg.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqe8kophmXk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqe8kophmXk</a>

I know that your issue seems to be a front leg but this should give you an idea of what the leg is like on the inside.  There isn't much difference from front to back  
If you do want to open her up to see if you can fix what is wrong you could always start with rolling up the leg skin and see just how much access that gives you but I think you will find that you need to go the whole hog and remove the skin. 

Can you post a video of her walking?  I would be interested to see if she is behaving at all like Cato did.

[Fleur]

Here is the video of her walking.  It's a little long since she has to be left alone for a while to walk.  She will walk fine but shortly after this video was taken her leg started whirring pretty bad and it's getting harder and harder for me to make it stop.  You can hear her leg crunching sort of when I put it back into place when it starts the whirring sound.  Right above her knee joint is really bulky on the injured leg vs. the other good leg.  I fear something has snapped off maybe?  There is nothing loose or broken off but it doesn't sound good when you go to move it.  In the video when I move her leg back I just want to point out it takes very little effort to move it back, there isn't any resistance like there should be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9WHkbScgSE

[RedwoodsMama]

I do have just one very minor suggestion. I know you said she had bad paint and I presume that is why you put the cape on, but I think we all can get a better look at the leg itself if there is no clothes on, at least the legs uncovered. It is hard to see any trouble walking like you said, she walks ok, but there is the noise and the way things feel, I have a Ugobe that has bad leg, where it practically gives way at the knee joint and it also gets warm, so probably a similiar problem but withou the whirrling noises.can you tape without any clothes on so we can see the leg please. Dont worry about any paint loss, skin problems, we just want to help with the leg problem.

              RWM