Part I

I have trees. Lots of trees. Very tall. They tend to litter up the roof with a fairly heavy leaf load, and it all ends up in the rain gutters. So, along comes iRobot and provides me a gizmo that *claims* to be the ticket to clean gutters...
And of course (being the Gizmodo Dragon) I plunk down a wad of dough and say "ship it." iRobot Looj PS do NOT pay $130. find them on eBay brand new for $60 (including shipping)

Bottom line: Looj gets a C-. Passing but barely. Also keep in mind that my place is this thing's worst case scenario... My gutters are also 30' up mostly, so *VERY* hard to clean, even with a really tall ladder.

Pros:

• gutter is clean
• probably cleaner than if I would have scooped it out.

Cons:

• Pine cones are its nemesis. It won't really flip them out of the gutter and it gets stuck on them.
  
• It took twice as long as if I would have scooped it.
• Track came off mid-way, and i had to manually retrieve it.
  
• flipped over in the gutter several times. the torque of the rotating flapper is enough to flip it, fairly easily.
  
• antenna gets stuck on gutter, and in fact in the track. antenna needs to be a lot shorter, and prb integrated.
  
• Gets high centered on pine cones, and debris in general. Make sure you let it really clear the debris before moving forward.
  
• flapper gets stuck, makes a horrible whining sound... so i backed off a bit and then went forward an inch at a time.
  

I had to watch the thing and control it from the top of the ladder (read: sprayed with gutter crap). Control from the ground at a safe distance failed miserably as it flipped and stopped several times. Clear a 4' section and then cautiously advance only a small bit at at time.

I had to move the ladder 5 times. if this had been more than a 30' gutter only 10' up, it would have been a severe pain in the butt. I am a great fan of automation, and robotics, and this little device is sort of neither. I am probably going to keep it but modify the flappers so they are a bit smaller (less flip-over torque) and probably remove the (mostly useless) brushes. BTW don't drop it from over 5'. (it fell off the ladder) it will survive but mine bent the flapper spindle, and i had to correct it (bend it back) or else it would have been off-center.

For those of you who have the Roomba, I still think it l ROCKS btw. Looj not so much...

iRobot folks if you are reading this, here are some suggestions:
brushes suck. get rid of them or make them stiffer.
flappers have too much surface area and contribute too much torque.
stuff falls on top of the device, and it just carries that stuff for the length of its ride.
when going backward, it needs a "cow-catcher" kind of thing to move debris away from the center and the tracks.

Part II

After Modifications

So I decided to try it again, this time with some mods. I wound up the antenna a bit so it doesn't get stuck going under the nails holding up the gutter. You can see in the picture that it's wound up behind the unit. Doesn't hurt reception too much, but farther away it might. The antenna actually acts a bit like the "cow catcher" that I wish they'd had. I might still make one out of a piece of wood or something and bolt it to the back end.

I made two modifications to the front end. I chopped about 1/2" off each of the ends of the rubber flappers so that it would have a bit less friction and a bit less torque. Then, I used ty-wraps to bunch and tilt forward the brushes so they don't get caught in the tread.

I tried a second gutter, (admittedly not quite as densely populated) and had success with the device. It got the flappers stuck a lot less (only a couple times actually). It didn't flip over, and it didn't loose traction. I went back and forth an inch at a time or so, just to let it flip the stuff out. There weren't any pine cones, so I don't know if it's a fair comparison to the first gutter...

What ended up happening actually is that the rotation of the flappers (rotating toward the roof) was flipping the stuff back up on the roof, where it would roll back down and get flipped again. only a small part of the leaves and needles actually got flipped OUT of the gutter and onto the ground. Not sure what one would do about this, but it seems like sort of a design flaw... If I turned the auger the other way (rotating away from the roof), it wouldn't flip anything out, because the shingles reached down actually into the gutter, and they blocked the thing throwing the leaves out. I actually had to break off a couple of the shingles over the near part of the gutter, just to get the device into the gutter at all.

So, I would recommend these small modifications to your device, as they seemed to help a bit. Good luck with your gutters...

Garmin in their infinite wisdom decided that it probably would be better not to send me a replacement unit that might also brick itself so they sent me the 885T which is a much better unit I think. More expensive too I imagine. So I gave them my credit card so they could cross-ship. I had sent the old unit back after I got the new one, only to have them send the old one back "repaired" a few weeks later. So I guess it's merry Christmas for me then... I get the new unit AND the old one back too. Good work Garmin. At least they get a good customer service score.

The one nice feature that the 885T has which the 765T doesn't is a removable battery. If the 765 had a removable battery, I could have taken it out and rebooted the unit (maybe).

The one great feature about the 885T is that it comes with the MSN Direct traffic receiver (in the 12V power cord). Well, since I don't feel like paying for MSN Direct service, AND I already seemed to have a GTM 20 FM traffic receiver... I plugged the GTM20 into the 885T and Voila! Traffic alerts. Now, with NO ADVERTISING!!! The 885T doesn't expect to be coupled with the GTM 20, but when it is, it still works fine. So I am a happy camper again - free lifetime traffic with NO ADS.

The GPS itself seems to function fine. Sometimes the voice seems to halt or stutter as the GPS's CPU tries to keep up with whatever it's doing in the background. Not a big deal, as the voice guidance is still understandable. Lane assist and the other features are nice. The one difference is this unit takes only a Micro-SD card rather than a full SD card. So I had to order another 2G card for $6 so I could have some tunes on a removable card. No biggie. The music player is the same as the other Nuvi versions (sucky UI) but it works.

The 885T "claims" to be able to render video on the unit from an analog input from a backup camera, but am not sure about this, or if it was meant for the US market. Boy that would be nice though to be able to use it as a little video display. Maybe someone will figure it out some day and let me know...

while driving, the new 765T decided that it would be a good time for it to "update its firmware." So, it says "updating firmware 1%" ... it says this a few times. I turned it off (I'm DRIVING and I need it to navigate...) and it seemed to be back to normal. A while later it happens again, and then I get the
"Update Complete - OK" dialog. clicked OK, and it turns itself off. Never to be heard from again. Dark. Nothing. Lifeless BRICK. I can't believe it BRICKED ITSELF WHILE DRIVING and ON THE ROAD. Spent 55 minutes on the phone (mostly waiting for a human) for them to tell me "uh, yeah its one of many reports we started receiving today." So Joy.

Garmin in their infinite wisdom decided it might *NOT* be a good idea to ship me another identical unit... so it looks like I will be getting an upgrade to a 800 series. Will see how well THIS brick works when it arrives next week...

Garmin Firmware Programmers: You're FIRED.

Got up at 7AM and fished off the shore of the lake for a bit, had as much luck as yesterday. It was quiet until about 8am. Sheesh don’t people got stuff to do on a Sunday morning. Got out the soldering iron and melted all up and down the seam of the leaking shower head, sealing it nicely. Ugly as sin, but it now doesn’t spray all over when it gets used… Went on an excursion today to visit Camano island state park, just for a day trip. Nice drive through farmland, wetlands, mudflats and the like. Perfect weather for yet a third day yields 73 degrees and sunny. *ALL* of the snow-capped peaks of the Puget Sound area mountains are visible today through the hazey air. Quite a treat. Nice little summer preview today, without the heat (thank GOD). Fished off the dock for a few minutes at the park as I obtained a new overdose of vitamin D. I was chased down by a large and lovely, yet heavily armed, member of the state wildlife enforcement division, who requested to see a “license.” Fortunately I had remembered to put it in my tackle box and I showed it to her, but that seemed to satisfy her as she left to pursue other perps. Repeated requests to cuff me went unfulfilled… Child One and Mommy are off to play at the park while I construct a new waste dump hose assembly. Cheap crappy hose we bought last year sprung leaks already, that’s only 9 months. Ugh. Where’s that beer..

Plumbing seems to have held up (more or less). Shower head leaks from the seam when the water pressure is on. Cheap Chinese plastic crap. Went fishing in the morning for an hour, didn’t catch anything except lake weed. Might have been too late, the guy that was there had a whole string of fish. Plus its so dang shallow that its probably only 9’ deep out 100 feet anyway and I bet the lake weed is 6 feet high. Makes fishing from shore a pain in the butt anyway. Next time I am bringing my inflatable boat. Whilst trying to hook up the laptop to the VGA port on the TV, and I knocked the laptop off the TV stand and it crashed to the floor, injuring the front right plastic piece. It was still playing Mythbusters for my son as I picked it up. I snapped the speaker grille plastic back in place, and with a little super glue, it should be fine. I tried like hell to light a camp fire, but it just would NOT catch. Even under the blue flame of a propane torch.

Campfire: FAIL.

Need more beer. Fell fast asleep on the couch in about 17 seconds.

Got the trailer parked and leveled. Yay. Beer is cold Yay.

Shower plumbing: FAIL. Nap: FAIL. <Sigh>

When we turned on the water, the shower valve handle shot out, squirting water all over the tiny bathroom. The plastic threaded piece under the handle that holds the valve into the fixture had broken and allowed the handle and valve to be ejected once there was pressure in the system. A trip into Marysville (WalMart) yielded a tube of superglue which fixed the failed handle valve’s plastic part, and thus I was able to repair the plastic valve and restore water service to the trailer again. Of course, the shower head handle now leaked water from a crack in its cheap design, so electrical tape was my friend in this repair. Cheap plastic crap didn’t even last until the second year.

OK, now it’s time to EAT. Hmmm… Costco has both gas and Meat… mmmmm.

Grilled raw meat over open fire. MMM Meat. Fire good. Chicken and rice… still can’t figure out how to grill the rice though, dangit.

Cranked up the old school ROCK N ROLL. Jethro Tull, ACDC, Stones, Beatles, Foghat, lots of classics… woot! Several hours of ripped internet radio fits on a 256MB SD card that plugs in to the stereo. BTW what’s a “CD” again?

Son and wife are playing frisbee with the other kids.

Now its time for shower and bed. It’s a good thing we have a working water system with hot water again…

2 carrots, sliced into thin pieces
1/2 bell pepper (red)
1/2 bell pepper (orange)
1/2 bell pepper (green)
1/4 small yellow onion, diced
10 small mushrooms, sliced
1/2 small cucumber, sliced thin (slices halved)
4 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 tbsp red pepper flakes
1/8 c fish sauce
1/4 c soy sauce
2 c sake (rice wine)
1/2 c water
2 tbsp sesame oil (or olive)

Carrots should be sliced (not lengthwise) into small thin circles. They cook better that way. Slice bell peppers into thin strips then cut to about 1-2" length. Dice onion and garlic into as fine pieces as you have the patience for. Slice and halve the cucumbers, thinly slice the mushrooms.

Combine oil, garlic, onion and red pepper flakes in teflon pan, cook on high, stirring constantly. After a couple minutes, add carrot slices and a small amount of rice wine (about 1/4 c). Stir and cook about 5 minutes or until the carrots start to become tender. If the mix starts to get dry, add some water and keep cooking. Then add the bell pepper slices and another 1/4 c of rice wine. Stir, cook. After a few more minutes, add the mushrooms and another 1/2 c of rice wine. Stirr, cook. After about 5 min, add all remaining ingredients and stir, cook, stir until it's done.

mildly spicy, weird, and good...

Enjoy!