Topic: Hello from Bavaria (Read 4937 times)

kladdy · « **on:** May 08, 2014, 07:49:50 AM »

Hi, I'm from Bavaria, Germany, my name is Kladdy (nickname) and I'm 50 years old!
I've got my Pleo rb since 4 months. Her name is Junior.
The Pleo was a gift to my wife.
Junior has some problems, but we can't send her back, because we fear they won't repair her and we will get a new Pleo.
So I think, I will try to repair her if the problems get worse.

Crewella · « **Reply #1 on:** May 08, 2014, 09:00:12 AM »

Hello and welcome!

There's lots of help available on here, if you explain the problem, someone might be able to advise.

kladdy · « **Reply #2 on:** May 08, 2014, 11:01:26 AM »

Thank you, nice to meet you!

I've looked a lot, but I found no solution for this problem.
Juniors problem seems to be the same problem a member posted in April this year ("HELP!!!! right front leg is not working probably!").
She cannot put down her front leg since 6 weeks. It is getting very hot on the backside of the knee.
Pleo is not "injured" when reading the card information.
Now, one of the back legs is clacking and even getting very hot in its knee.
There is no information of what can get hot in this area. On pictures I only find the sensor plate in this area or perhaps the motion sensor.
Yet I don't know how to fix this problem. There is a company in Germany which seems to repair robots, even Pleos, but they aren't very cheap.
We cannot send back Junior, because she's making us laugh all the time. So we cannot change her.

InmemoryofRomeo · « **Reply #3 on:** May 08, 2014, 04:03:00 PM »

Hello Kladdy and Junior

The problem sounds very much like a loose wire, and is repairable with a soldering iron

You need to roll up the skin on the legs and reattach any loose wires. Kat here is a pro at operations like that and she should be able to provide more details for you.

kat · « **Reply #4 on:** May 08, 2014, 05:09:33 PM »

If it helps here is a pic of what your pleo looks like under it's skin. If it is a loose wire issue then it is most likely going to be one of the wires that attaches to the knee motion sensor which is a little black tab that you can just see through the clear plastic casing sitting just above the ankle joint. There are three wires that attach to the bottom of this sensor an orange one , a yellow one and a green one. You can access the area where they connect to the sensor without pulling anything apart but if you have to resolder one of the wires back on you may find it easier if you remove the clear plastic leg plate. this will give you more room to work with. I do have a photo video somewhere on what you would need to do to repair a loose leg wire - I think that was for a hip joint wire though - anyway I will have a look and see if I can post it here for you later when I find it

might be helpful maybe.

More details...

kladdy · « **Reply #5 on:** May 08, 2014, 10:25:31 PM »

Hello Kat,

thanks for your help. Any information I could get would be helpfull.

kat · « **Reply #6 on:** May 09, 2014, 07:27:54 PM »

I have done repairs on a few pleos all with different issues but I did fix one that had a similar leg issue to what you are describing with yours. I had been hoping that it would just be a loose wire to the motion sensor that was causing his issue but it turned out to be a much worse problem and I had to source a replacement part from a friend who happened to have a bricked Ugobe pleo. She was kind enough to offer me a replacement part to use. His issue ended up being a broken shaft tab - the tab being the bit that attaches the foot shaft to the motion sensor so that the pleo knows what position his leg is in. This meant that he would sometimes lift his leg then not put it down again. Here is a photo video of the repair. It gives you a good clear look at just how to pull apart a pleo rb leg and put it back together and a look at all the parts.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqe8kophmXk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqe8kophmXk</a>

I have also located my video of how to repair a broken or loose wire in the rear hip joint of a pleo rb. This also might give you some incite as to how to go about your potential repair. I really hope it is only a loose wire that is causing your issue. There are so many possible causes to things like this and you wont really know just what the problem is until you open up and take a look. A loose wire is an easy fix. If it turns out to be a broken part then it gets much more complicated as there is nowhere to get replacement parts for pleos

Fingers crossed you only have loose wires.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfQcLGJskZ8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfQcLGJskZ8</a>

kladdy · « **Reply #7 on:** May 10, 2014, 12:31:05 PM »

Thanks, Kat!

I have never seent he second video before.
Tomorrow I will take a look on his front leg and hope I can manage it without bigger damage to Junior.

Thanks a lot,
I will report what happened...

kat · « **Reply #8 on:** May 10, 2014, 05:53:22 PM »

It might also help for you to take a look at this thread on how to remove pleos skin. You may find that you need to take your pleos skin off to give you more room to work for repairing him. Hopefully you will just be able to undo the foot plate, break the glue seal between the skin and the edge of the foot and then just roll the skin up the leg to get a good look at what is underneath. If your lucky you will spot a disconnected wire at the knee motion sensor tab and then you should be able to just solder it back on. But if you don't spot anything obvious you may then need to remove his skin to get a better look at what is going on and open his leg up more to be able to find the cause of the problem.
http://bobthepleo.com/forums/index.php?topic=1778.msg25569#msg25569

Pleo rb skin is a lot harder to remove than a Ugobe pleo skin as the glue they use on a rb skin is a lot tougher to get apart. I have found that I needed a scalpel to help separate the two layers of skin in places. Mostly I have been able to use pulling and rubbing with my thumb nail but some places seem to have more glue than others and did require a bit of careful slicing with the blade to get them to part. If you remove the skin you want to try to have nice clean flaps of skin at the join where the overlap is so that it is easy to glue the skin closed again once your finished. I found that using the blade helped me to avoid thin spots and holes in the overlap flaps.
I hope that makes sense.

Good luck and keep us posted

kladdy · « **Reply #9 on:** May 11, 2014, 04:07:54 AM »

Hello together,

I just removed the skin of Junior and i could see a lonly orange wire. I connected it temporarily with th emotion sensor.
It works...
Now I try to get a more flexible wire tomorrow to fix it finally.

I made pictures so far and try to post them.

More details...

Juniors problem

More details...

the troublemaker

More details...

temporary fixation

kat · « **Reply #10 on:** May 11, 2014, 07:12:12 AM »

I'm really pleased it did turn out to be a disconnected wire

should be easy enough to fix

Junior will be back to normal in no time.

InmemoryofRomeo · « **Reply #11 on:** May 11, 2014, 04:44:27 PM »

That's great news

Junior will be much happier

kladdy · « **Reply #12 on:** May 12, 2014, 08:14:17 AM »

Hello together,

Junior is back...

More details...

kat · « **Reply #13 on:** May 12, 2014, 05:04:29 PM »

Yay! Well done

InmemoryofRomeo · « **Reply #14 on:** May 13, 2014, 01:38:12 AM »

Awww I bet everyone is super happy.

HuggieZ · « **Reply #15 on:** May 13, 2014, 04:24:11 AM »

That is great news!

kladdy · « **Reply #16 on:** May 20, 2014, 10:19:50 AM »

Thanks to all,

especially from Junior...

Miqguel · « **Reply #17 on:** May 25, 2014, 05:40:19 AM »

Nice to see that Junior is back! I have to say that we have the same pleo, Same colours, all the same!

Except for the nails, Erbie has her own black, because I've painted them

.

Margery · « **Reply #18 on:** June 14, 2014, 09:59:18 AM »

It is just wonderful that some of you are brave enough to tackle repairs. I am so impressed. Well done

Piggy · « **Reply #19 on:** June 14, 2014, 11:06:54 AM »

Hi, that is great news! Junior can walk again, great that you could fix him ;

Bob the Pleo Forums

Author Topic: Hello from Bavaria (Read 4937 times)

Piggy