field notes

The Log

Long-form build stories, documented episode by episode as they actually happen — the wrong turns left in.

Neato D10 Brain Transplant Backwards

AUG 18, 2026 · Ep. 20

Backwards

The logic analyzer finally arrived, so I ran the one test episode 19 promised would settle it. I validated the instrument, watched both channels sit dead flat through spin after spin, and had my finger on the button to order the replacement. The sensor was fine. I'd wired its power backwards — and it turns out I'd had the pinout backwards for two weeks.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant It only answers in motion

AUG 11, 2026 · Ep. 19

It only answers in motion

I set out to test the encoder sensors properly and got three flat, identical readings — including one from a motor I wasn't even studying. Three sensors don't die the same way. The problem was never the hardware; it was that I'd been asking a motion sensor to answer while standing still.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant One wire at a time

AUG 10, 2026 · Ep. 18

One wire at a time

After a day of phantom edges I stopped patching and rebuilt the whole encoder circuit from a bare breadboard, meter in hand at every step. I found the resistor that was never doing what I built it to do — and at the end, exactly one part left that won't talk.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant Fifty thousand lies a second

AUG 10, 2026 · Ep. 17

Fifty thousand lies a second

The encoder came back from the dead and started counting like crazy. Every number was a lie. This is a running log of the investigation — how we caught the counts red-handed, and what was actually making them.
Learning Rust on the Robot The wheel that wouldn't stop

AUG 10, 2026 · Ep. 2

The wheel that wouldn't stop

I built a little tool to ask the robot a question. It answered — and then, when I told it to stop, it didn't. Turns out Ctrl-C kills your program, not the thing on the other end of the wire.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant The sensor spoke, then went dark

AUG 9, 2026 · Ep. 16

The sensor spoke, then went dark

It finally counted — 422 edges, hard proof the encoder was alive. Then my laptop died, I unplugged everything to deal with it, plugged it back together — and the sensor never said another word. What followed was hours of ruling everything out until only one culprit was left standing.
Learning Rust on the Robot The line I couldn't give back

AUG 9, 2026 · Ep. 1

The line I couldn't give back

I had one tiny function to finish — turn bytes into a line. The compiler refused it twice, and then, when I tried to write a test to prove it worked, refused that too. Both refusals were right.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant The wires talked, the sensor didn't

AUG 7, 2026 · Ep. 15

The wires talked, the sensor didn't

A connector with no labels gave up its secret to nothing but a multimeter — I knew every wire before I applied a single volt. Then I powered it up, turned the wheel, and it had absolutely nothing to say. And the night ended with a flash and every light going out.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant The corpse in the garage fought back

AUG 7, 2026 · Ep. 14

The corpse in the garage fought back

Last session I bragged that a dead PC in the garage would be my free bench supply — jump green to black and it turns on. Then I looked at the connector. Dell had other ideas. And once I finally had 12 volts, the motor still refused to move — for a reason that had nothing to do with the wiring I kept re-checking.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant The shopping trip that turned into a salvage run

AUG 6, 2026 · Ep. 13

The shopping trip that turned into a salvage run

I set aside a session to buy the battery parts. One by one, nearly every line item argued its way off the list — a multimeter I already own, two plant pots, a dead PC in the garage — until the only thing left to buy was wire I probably don't need either.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant The answer wasn't on the workbench

AUG 6, 2026 · Ep. 12

The answer wasn't on the workbench

A box of motor drivers finally showed up, so of course I spent the whole session losing a fight with a sensor the size of a fingernail. The multimeter lied to me three different ways before I worked out I'd been asking the wrong tool the wrong question.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant The first thing that moved because I told it to

AUG 6, 2026 · Ep. 11

The first thing that moved because I told it to

Ten episodes of teardown, measuring, and shopping. Then a box arrived, and for the first time I typed a word and a motor answered. It didn't go smoothly — the thing I'd never once been told I needed was the thing missing.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant 10

AUG 5, 2026 · Ep. 10

The cheap part that came from the wrong hobby

The last part on the list should have been the easiest — a box that turns 14 volts into 5. Instead it taught me the big number on the label is the one you can't trust, and that my power supply was hiding in someone else's hobby.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant Buying it was supposed to be the easy part

AUG 5, 2026 · Ep. 9

Buying it was supposed to be the easy part

The measuring was done, the list was final. All I had to do was click buy — and discovered that every line on it had a lookalike waiting to trip me. Then I turned the robot over and found the next project staring up at me.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant The motor that wasn't on the list

AUG 5, 2026 · Ep. 8

The motor that wasn't on the list

I sat down to measure one motor and close the driver order. I stood up having found a whole motor my own notes had quietly forgotten.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant 7

AUG 4, 2026 · Ep. 7

Everyone stopped at my door

Before measuring one more thing, I asked the obvious question: has someone already done this? The answer was a community that mapped the whole road — right up to my exact robot, then stopped.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant The brain under the shield

AUG 4, 2026 · Ep. 6

The brain under the shield

I peeled off a metal shield I'd already written off as 'just the WiFi', and found a whole Linux computer staring back. For about an hour, the entire project was in question.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant A number that wouldn't sit still

AUG 4, 2026 · Ep. 5

A number that wouldn't sit still

I finally put probes on a motor — and spent the next hour learning that a bad reading and a bad contact look exactly the same.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant The motors won't tell you their limits

AUG 4, 2026 · Ep. 4

The motors won't tell you their limits

Four motors, a cheap multimeter that can't be trusted, and one smug fan that prints its own numbers and needs no help at all.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant Which parts live, which parts die

AUG 3, 2026 · Ep. 3

Which parts live, which parts die

Sorting the salvage from the scrap, and sketching the three-layer nervous system that replaces the brain I just condemned.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant Cracking it open

AUG 3, 2026 · Ep. 2

Cracking it open

The teardown, the inventory, and the one part inside that turned a maybe-impossible project into a probably-fine one.
Neato D10 Brain Transplant The robot that went dumb

AUG 3, 2026 · Ep. 1

The robot that went dumb

Neato went bust, Vorwerk killed the cloud, and it turns out you can't even root the thing. So I decided to gut it.