What's your favorite piece of tech in the teardown? For me, it's that underwater motor. I wouldn't call it a waterproof motor, as it isn't sealed. It's a motor that works perfectly fine when filled with water, so an under-water motor... Cool stuff. Beatbot official link: bit.ly/3ykFvZj, Amazon: bit.ly/46CRIFe. Have a great week everybody!
I liked the peristaltic pump, and I was surprised to see rollers on the pump's "gear". I was expecting to see just plain fingers/teeth and thought that they would wear out the tubing over time, but the rollers must make the tubing last much longer and reduce friction and power drain. Nicely made overall for a machine composed of 90% plastic.
Right, right!? I work remotely, so this really is something I look forward to Friday afternoons. I watch in segments until I get through the entire video.
All credit to Beatbot for giving you a machine to thoroughly review then tear down. A free unit to the pool owner was a very nice touch, they deserve to do well. Thumbs up, Jon, for reassembly into a working unit again.
Says a lot about the company. They obviously build a quality product. The fact they sent her a free one, means they don't fear it breaking down and getting a bad review. More like good word of mouth advertising.
man your channel really needs more love. i cant believe you dont have 1 mil + subscribers all your content is gold. i wait every week for your new videos
Looking at this from an engineering standpoint, it looks to be very well made and serviceable, i hope they support this machine with a good spares catalogue at reasonable prices.
The peristaltic tubing will need to be changed every 6 months or swimming season, depending on where you live. Most people would not be able to self service this machine.
Yeah. I don't know how long that tube will hold up getting kneaded by the pump all the time. I would hope the company did some long term testing of these pumps in chlorinated pool water and would know how quickly they fail. Having the pump easier to access and service might be a nice improvement to keep the rest of the robot running for years.
@@ProtonOne11 if its the same kind of tube i got in my peristaltic pump it feed chlorine to sanitize the milking system 🙂i change them every 2 year they still look not bad it pump for 5min every day
Its amazing that a pool robot is more accessible then a modern car. Most things not glued, lots of screw, The tabs that exist are actually possible to be opend/closed ... want to see more stuff like that ^^
I suspect that is a function of being a relatively low-volume product. You can see how much work it would be to assemble/build this thing. I'm sure that could be "streamlined" to lower production cost if you had the volume to justify the expense of engineering and building the tooling to do so like you might in an automotive application. The negative of course is that leads to non-serviceable parts in the name of cheaper manufacturing.
That's honestly a huge mark in favor of the company if the robot doesn't have waterproofing issues long-term. Waterproofing and serviceability are often antithetical, so I'm impressed if they've spent the money and test time to effectively balance the two
@@leocurious9919 Remember the good old times where you could just buy a lightbulb for a few $ at the gas station and replace it in a few minutes by yourself? Good luck trying that with a modern car...
@@ProtonOne11 Remember the good old times where you could hardly see any distance? With light that was very irregular and yellowish? And you had to change the light bulb every year or so? You can still get the same today and spend less money if you do not want to go with LED. But seriously, Xenon or LED (and now laser?) is just SO much better. And of course it will be a little more complex than grabbing an H7 at the gas station to replace that. I know that they do some really shitty stuff, but there are hardly things today that are better to service than cars. In part because that is now a legal matter after they tried to force you to use their shops.
I don't have a pool or any need for something like this. However, I so much like the way you do these product reviews I watched the whole thing. It still works ! Looking forward to future videos, too !
First of all thank you to BeatBot for letting you muck about with their stuff and giving a unit to your friend! In addition to what is obviously a very nice piece of machinery it appears that the company is also top notch! Kudos to them and you! This video brought back memories of a multi-year project of mine building a high performance DPV (Diver Propulsion Vehicle) from scratch. Granted, my unit was designed to operate in salt water but many of the engineering challenges are the same. The Beatbot guys really hit it out of the park. Building something that lives underwater is WAY harder than you might initially believe. They didn't appear to take any shortcuts. I am impressed! Nicely done! Thank you for another fun farmcraft101 video! A new farmcraft vid= a good day for me! Take care and all the best from California! 🧡
I see at least one comment saying they don't like this video and that's fair enough. I think the reason though is we like seeing you solve problems you're having at your place, this was someone else's pool. Time to get a pool 😁
I was really hoping you would hit 'go' on the app and it would just take off and dive into the pool on it's own. Not sure how it would get out, but that's a problem for later!
it could be possible to do this with a retractable arm but the arm would need to be pretty strong and the motor as well which adds a lot of weight....it might also rough up the edge as it tries to exit. certainly why they didn't do it, it would also need navigation to it's charger which requires different kinds of sensors. a lot of extra cost and for pretty minor amount of benefit.
I know some are unhappy it's not "FarmCraft" but for me it actually is! So far you have shown us you are: StockMan / Engineer / Mechanic / Plumber / Tree Surgeon / Civil Engineer / Electrician / HVAC Technician / Blacksmith / Machinist / Carpenter etc etc. Your fault finding and analysis skills are superb and you always seem to be able to explain everything in a way that just is easy on the brain (for me at least!) Thank you Jon for taking the time to create these wonderful videos for our enjoyment and education! Richard (UK)
About 30 years ago, a friend had me work on the rear drivers side door of a 1970 Silver Shadow. That, too, was designed to be worked on! Jon, I didn't see any tamper-proof stickers on anything! GREAT! steve
A Farmcraft video.... on a *_Monday?!_* Pleasant surprise! Thanks, Jon! 13:40 "Submarine Buoyancy System" ... In subs, those are just called ballast tanks. 😁
@Failure_Is_An_Option That's okay. An honest tech review from Jon, sponsored or not, is still Jon just doing his thing and bringing us along for the ride. It was still interesting, even though I don't have a pool and probably won't have a pool in the foreseeable future and so won't be needing one of these, ever - but I enjoyed learning about it. Plus, I work for a retail company whose offerings include some basic pool cleaning stuff, and it's interesting and helpful to me to know what othe options are out there. If my customer is looking for a pool cleaning robot, I now have good information regarding quality and can recommend this product to them if that's what they're looking for - even if my employer doesn't sell it. It's all about helping the customer, and people remember that, whether they ultimately buy from you or not. And if you're that helpful, they come back next time they need something. And I've always been one to rip things apart to see how they work. Just ask my mom how old I was the first time I disassembled her vacuum cleaner. 😊 So who cares if it's advertising? Only the sponsor. As long as it's informative and entertaining, people will watch and enjoy it. Exhibit A: Super Bowl commercials. They're arguably more popular than the game itself, depending on who you ask.
@@Failure_Is_An_Option Yeah, but I am ok with this one, it was not like some other "reviewers" that just say that "this is the best, buy this", this had a lot of actual information. And the fact that they sent it to him after he said he would only do a review on it if he could pick it to pieces, this shows the company has great confidence in the quality of their product, and I feel that says more about the product and company than any reviewer could ever say.
Those propeller motors look like the ones they use in aquarium pumps that can run in deep water without problems. The whole thing looks like its full of easily replaceable parts, shame other plastic contraptions aren't made as well. Didn't think a pond cleaner would be interesting like your other machine videos and only watched to help the numbers but yet again you made it so. Well done.
That canned rotor/canned stator flooded motor is the same technology used for some nuclear plant reactor coolant pumps. Those pumps are very large induction motors, and the pool cleaner probably used a permanent magnet rotor, but the flooded motor application is similar.
That was probably one of the most thorough new product reviews around. The tear down does show the level of engineering design put into this utility product exceeds what we as consumers have grown accustomed with. Anyone who has had a pool knows the maintenance cost associated with such a luxury. Hopefully this video will aid those searching for ready solutions.
Peristaltic action , I believe, is the way food moves through our intestines so that pump is awesome! This was built with top notch engineering and quality components. Beat bot knew what they had and weren't afraid to show it! Cheers, Rik Spector
one thing that device needs is an "auto redock" so it works like a roomba in literally every way the biggest trouble is that you would need a ramp somewhere that it could travel up, possibly the dock itself would have an automagic ramp that lowers just below the intended water line so the device can do a swim and find the ramp, then drive up, charge, and repeat on the next day/charge(if heavy cleaning is required you set it to just keep cleaning constantly and recharge when required unless you tell it you are using the pool)
@@mikelockhart9114 so how does the unit deal with exposed pads? the problem with electrical stuff and charging is being POWERED when wet all you have to do is let the water drain out of the dock(it dam well should be capable of that as the device literally pumps water inside sealed parts of itself) and have the unit trigger the dock to power the pads(possibly by the act of entering a tiny box that it docks into so it can be weatherproof) you are worried for no reason, though I guess TECHNICALLY it shouldn't be DIRECTLY next to the pool so the alignment is to have the dock shoot out a ramp that can roll up inside/fold up(possibly as part of the entrance door) and that ramp simply has floats built-in that cause it to float on the surface as the unit drives up onto it after docking you simply wind up a retraction device that pulls the ramp back and seals the charging chamber(besides the obvious drain holes) a large pool will require constant cleaning and constant charging, something that basically mandates an automated charge dock the difficulty is placing a dock in such a way that the unit can escape the pool on it's own, after that it simply becomes roomba logic to dock and charge
I thought the tear down was great because I knew he would attempt to put it back together and I really didn’t think it would work. But it did! And John was just as surprised as I was. Thanks for another great video.
awesome video , quick tip: when re-inserting a screw into plastic/wood ,turn backwards till it falls on it's thread so that your not cutting new threads
Hi Jon, I liked the methodical way you "attacked" this and it's great to know that manufacturers are starting to return to servicable rather than disposable designs. Much better for the environment etc. Whilst some may complain this video is not "FarmCraft"; it was interesting and I'm sure we all learnt something that will turn up later in another video as a fix !! Keep up the good work.
I work with peristaltic pumps everyday and the technology is great! One thing that these pumps do best is that they seal the tube at the apex, so no fluid can flow through. Maybe that is the reason why they've used this type of pump, because you need no check-valves.
Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't the same type of pumps used in Heart bypass and Dialysis machines? I think I saw somewhere that they are used because it causes less damage to the blood cells as they are passing through the pump.
@@arteepee you are correct. Not only that but, as the moving parts don't have contact with the fluid, my guess is that it's also to make it easier to keep everything as clean as possible and the tubes can be removed for later to be burned, differently from a diaphragm pump that has direct contact with the fluid and can even release small particles that could potentially clough a vein.
Very impressed by the build quality and serviceability. My one question would be is what is the availability of parts like? Will beatbot supply parts to customers?
After watching this video my wife and I bought the lower model Beatbot. I have tried it several times since it arrived and I like it. It is easy to use and does a good job on our indoor pool.
I used to drive my father crazy with my curiosity of disassembling stuff, but never getting it back together. My chances of getting something like THIS to work again would have been literally zero. Well done Jon!
John cool teardown and way to go your friend got a free pool bot! Cool steering thrusters, ultrasonic radar learning AI and ballast tanks. The engineering looks well thought out.
Kind of speaks volumes for a company that isn't scared of letting someone tear into their product. They knew that they put their best into it and it showed. It couldn't be made out od stainless as that would add too much weight, carbon fibre would be too expensive and aluminum would oxidize and deteriorate. One thing though, the screws looked like they were just normal screws which means they would be prone to rusting after awhile, they may want to switch those out for stainless screws. Also a little note, when inserting a screw back into a plastic housing, turn them backwards first till you feel them drop into their old thread. That ensures you do not chew out the hole by cutting new threads all the time and chewing out the hole. I never start a screw in plastic with a drill or electric screw driver unless I can turn then backwards first, feel them drop into the old threads then turn forwards a bit and grab the drill/electric screw driver. It ensures your items will continue to work properly until the plastic itself starts to break down.
Been working with programming and designing robots for over 15 years now, and that robot must have been about 5 years in the making. I seems like a mature product. Nicely done.
Like many others, I have no pool, but watched the whole video. I enjoyed the teardown and the unit looks pretty dang solid. If I had a pool I would definitely be looking into the product. Good job from Beatbot too, letting you have at it and tear the thing down. Confidence to let a farmer tear up your robot is a pretty impressive vote of confidence in the design and quality of the machine!
I think the real benefits from a peristaltic pump in that robot are: 1) the pump is reversable to both fill & empty the tanks, 2) no chemicals in the water will ever react with an impeller (corrosion), 3) there is a single loop of hose inside the sealed compartment (no pump housing to leak on the electronics). I'm couldn't say whether 'steady flow' or 'measured flow' are utilized by that robot.
That was truly a deep dive ( pun intended ) and totally unexpected on your channel. You took it apart and reassembled it successfully and your not covered in grease. I don't have a pool so no vested interest but that was fun Jon and thanks to beatbox for giving you the opportunity.
Random appreciation comment: I must thank you. The pressure washing nozzle you’ve been using in your videos has looked like it’s an awesome addition to a pressure washer. I’ve used a couple nozzles that claimed to be “great”, but were complete let downs. I decided to take one last chance on a nozzle. Well, I’m super happy to say that the nozzle you brought into my life has change my pressure washing game dramatically for the good!!! My harbor freight electric pressure washer is now a decent substitute for the gas powered one 💪🏻 So thank you, thank you, thank you!
As a pool owner living in AZ, I sure want one...we normally get into the water and walk around with small hand skimming nets before settling down to really enjoy our pool time. Love that skimming function!
Thanks for the video, I don’t own a pool but good to see actual quality and thought being put into product longevity in this day and age. On your software change suggestion, they should just allow fully customizing the order of steps (including how many times to repeat) then it’d be much more valuable since you could have routines like “surface, floor, walls, surface” or any combination of steps that suits the pool owner and how they’d like to clean their pool.
$2200.00 seems like a deal. Millions were spent with tooling and design. That's pretty cool. I have a pool but I can't afford it. I want one. What a neat machine. A+++ Great video. Nice to see something built beyond expectations.
Fun fact, farmers use a style of pump like that to distribute the fertilizer. Like Mr Jon said its a predictable, reliable flow to be precise. Thank you for the video, hopefully we can get another this coming Friday.
From an ex-Navy guy; buoyancy chamber = ballast tanks in real submarines. Love your content, keep it up! (especially the heavy equipment and farming stuff!)
I use ice cream lids with blu tack, so i can copy the pattern of the screws, you can wright on the blu tack what part its for and use many lids with layered projects such as that one, great for when you go back to it months or years later, cheers John.
Looks fantastic! Only one thing I didn't like. It's 62 years too late for me. I had that chore at our pool when I was a kid. Twice a week I had to sweep the pool and clean the old fashioned 'sock' filter. That took me more than 2 hours and my dad inspected my work. He wasn't a hard ass about it, but it had to be right. I ended up hating that pool. I vowed then and there to NEVER own a home with a pool. I've kept that vow. This little marvel could change people's minds...BUT NOT MINE!
Not to put down Beatbot..they probably have a good product..but I bought my dad a Dolphin M400 15+ years ago and it has needed literally ZERO maintenance for it's entire life. High chlorine, high UV environment..it's amazing..plastic hasn't even faded or cracked. It's "dumb" and doesn't have mapping..but the 20x40 inground is clean every time.
Just looked that up. Are they all corded? That would make sense that you could just drop a "dumb" corded device in and let it clean all day and night. I think if you're running on batteries, you have to add the detection technology to ensure full coverage with efficient battery use. But I'm not a pool owner, so I can't really say. I do like great gadgets, though.
@@LeeRodrigue I omitted this in my post because I had posted before seeing that the Beatbot is cordless. Yes..the Dolphin M400 is corded. It only takes about 2-3 hours to cover a 20x40 and has all the same features as the Beatbot except for mapping and skimming. It climbs walls, water line etc. I would also assume the motor is more powerful..although I've never tested the low voltage DC supply on the "wire" for current or voltage. It does make a visible plume or "boil" on the water surface when in the shallow end (~3ft deep). Also don't have to worry about battery degradation after what..1000 charges or so? I am just really impressed with the engineering of the thing. It just WORKS. Literally have never done maintenance on it in 15+ years.
@@Live.Vibe.Lasers Does it do the skimming thing too? Like all those leave floating on the surface at 9:11? Or do you use the old skim net on a pole for that?
Impressive! Looks like it took quite a while to get it back together, awesome to keep it working instead of in the garbage. (though if you had broken it... lots of useful parts for other projects!)
As usual, I’m astounded. I gave it a 99% chance you’d get it back together. You proved me wrong. It was a 100% chance. As for the cam pump for the hose, I’d think that would wear out first, but as you have shown, it can be serviced.
As an ROV Geek, I love this video. RC Subs are so cool and an autonomous pool cleaner is a perfect thing for hacker geeks like me to play with or even design my own. John, you are an awesome RU-vidr!
Cool video. I’m a ex submariner so I found some common ground with this video.😂 For interest sake, a submarine uses 3 different sets of tanks. 1. Ballast tanks to surface and dive the boat. 2 Regulating tanks which you use to get a 0 buoyancy. 3 Trim tanks on bow and stern to keep the boat level. Once you have perfect buoyancy and trim, depth is changed using planes and forward motion similar to a aeroplane elevator.
ballast tanks. A ballast tank is a compartment within a boat, ship or other floating structure that holds water, which is used as ballast to provide hydrostatic stability for a vessel, to reduce or control buoyancy, as in a submarine, to correct trim or list, to provide a more even load distribution along the hull to reduce structural hogging or sagging stresses, or to increase draft, as in a semi-submersible vessel or platform, or a SWATH, to improve seakeeping. Using water in a tank provides easier weight adjustment than the stone or iron ballast used in older vessels, and makes it easy for the crew to reduce a vessel's draft when it enters shallower water, by temporarily pumping out ballast. Airships use ballast tanks mainly to control buoyancy and correct trim.
Have we gone full circle? A modern, serviceable appliance.. I hope you're getting a kickback. After watching this, I definitely want one and I won't be the only one. Nice job.
Its like 8.5/10ths of the way to being a full fledged Roomba for the pool. It just can't get to and from its charger to the area of responsibility. Regardless, its a neat bit of kit, and as others have said, hats off to the sponsor, Beatbot, for their alloowing you the opportunity to provide your veiwers what they expect from you and your channel; unbiased opinions, and truthfulness. Your friend getting a Beatbot was also first class of them. I would absolutely buy one of these if I had a personal pool. As it stands now, i AM going to speak to our manager at the pool that we belong to, and see if we can talk her into a purchase. I think its the least I can do after viewing this.
Pretty amazing. I agree, it appears to be well built. Fun fact: medical infusion pumps are usually peristaltic pumps. The fluid being infused is only exposed to the inside of the tube which can be replaced with new sterile tubing as needed.
Jon: "...opening this [battery] up won't accomplish anything, other than cause a fire and ruin the battery." Me: "Darn it! Since when has that stopped you?" 🤣
I will say that that piece of equipment is built well. The single thing that is impressive is the motor that functions underwater without damage, but the unit as a whole is impressive and add in the fact that it went back together and worked. Most things these days don't go back together and work once they have been deconstructed, because it is not meant to be serviceable. Thanks for sharing and thanks to BeatBot for taking care of your friend like they did.
not that i own a pool but i couldn't think of any better to than farmCraft to review this robot machine joh has a way of analyzing every thing cleary for every one to understand and most of to keep us interested i wish nothing good fortune to this man
John, ur Creativity, Sustainability, and Effectively of getting the Beatbot Pro apart and put back together is amazing work.. and it still works! have two beers on me..
I’m an embedded developer. USB port is usually for bring up and development activities. It may offer a serial console. Unless there’s a serious problem in the software, you would expect to diagnose and update the device through its Wi-Fi interface. Some companies even remove the USB port from the bill of materials before entering production. It’s odd they’ve made it accessible from the clarifier bay.
Wow a plastic robot that is SERVICEABLE Amazing ! .... yep my favorite part is the underwater motor.... I discovered as a kid that battery operated motors will actually work under water.... but to see one that was meant to be operated underwater was something new !..... and I am amazed you didn't break something doing that Jon ! that just proves you are much better at tearing things apart and fixing them than I ever was ! and I pride myself in being able to fix anything ! there's only a few things that I have opted to not fix ! my hats off to you ! you have THE SKILL buddy that only 1 in 100 people have.... and that estimation is probably very low ! LOL ... can't wait for the next video ! I want to see that big excavator down a big tree... that should be fun to watch after seeing the struggle with the mini excavator doing that !
I really didn’t think this video would be interesting. As I got into it watching you disassemble the beast the video got really interesting. Good job explaining how it worked. Cheers from 🇨🇦
