dekunukem / bob_cassette_rewinder Goto Github PK

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Hello
have you some reference of connecteur usable on this project ?
i need to replace my broken one but i can’t find the same or for very high price

Hi!

I bought bob rewinder and it is working perfectly.
I can't find detergent for rock and roll cassette. Does anybody have any suggestions? What are you using to refill it?

I bought and tried the detergents recommended by the creator of this wonderful rewinder, but they just simply don't clean my dishes.
Seems to work okay on non-stick pans, but plates and cutlery are being left with food smears stuck to them.

I noticed there's a difference in PH levels between the original bob formula and the recommended replacement; the original bob formula has a PH 1, whereas the recommended replacement has PH 2. Not sure if that's the reason it's just not cleaning my dishes?

Has anyone had any luck finding a good replacement detergent and rinse aid in the UK? I'm pulling my hair out over this, I've been searching for ages.

Instead of creating a PCB to reset the EEPROM have you considered using a very small MCU which emulates the EEPROM read/writes while basically always returning the maximum number? That would reduce the number of connector inserts/removals by 50% because those PCB connectors aren't too wear resistant.

My Bob (normal version) arrived today and I could not help but take it apart immediately (at least the front plate).
I'll share my findings here, because some of them are very relevant to the project.

The front panel is very easy to take apart, just remove the screws visible from the inside. There are four (non evil) clips holding the front plastic down around the window, those will come undone by applying a bit of force and rocking the front plastic around from the top (there is no way to directly undo the clips, but they are designed to pull out without damage). There is a hinge at the bottom, so do not pry from the bottom.

Having done that, you will be greeted by a small board (rev 2.4 in my case) with an ESP32-WROOM-32D (Detected as ESP32-D0WD (revision 1)) and a handful of peripherals. Notably, the connection to the power electronics somewhere else in the unit happens via a single standard RJ45 cable.
There is a handy programming header for the ESP, I have marked the pinout in the picture below.

I used esptool to dump the firmware (esptool detects 16MB flash). I am no firmware dumping expert, I cannot guarantee that this file is valid and wont brick your Bob. Flashing it to a random 8MB ESP32 does seem to give the correct serial output, but doesnt find all the partitions. I sadly do not have a 16MB ESP around to test it properly.
BobOS_hwrev24.zip

Now for the most interesting bit: The serial dump. Bob is VERY talkative when just connected to a 115200 baud serial interface. Maybe a little too talkative because it includes wifi ssid and password in cleartext. Here is a somewhat full serial log with personal information [REDACTED]: Bob_serial_log.txt

It seems to be communicating to an AWS backend using MQTT. Alarmingly, there is no privacy policy available for this particular service and there are some hints towards the bottom of the log that it might be sending cartridge info to the server.
If that is the case, they may be able to see if cassettes have been rewound.

Regardless, they are able to fight the rewinder with OTA updates, so keeping wifi disconnected might be the best option. Until someone takes the risk and tries it, we dont know if downgrading by flashing the ESP works.

Have you done an analysis of the machine cleaner cartridge? (the rock one)

This issue isn't with this repo, I just found it amusing.

There has been a lot of inkjet cartridge refill over the years. Pushing hole repeatedly though with a needle with the one way membrane is going to cause it to fail lot sooner just like push the ink back though the foam with printer cartridges.

On inkjets you have the refill/factory fill port on the other side of the cartridge to the outlet normally. From what I have see of videos/photo of the bob cassette the two factory filling ports that are now fully plugged are in fact on the other side of the cartridge to the one way membrane and the electronics right out on the corners well away from the electronics. I know its kind of scary to have to drill 2 holes to put in refill port plugs. Yes from what I can see of the bob cassette when sitting in the machine the original filling ports will be up so leakage if plugs are not perfect is highly unlikely if they are converted by drilling into refill ports with silicon plugs inserted.

https://www.aliexpress.com/i/32841417076.html
Yes the refill port plugs for inkjet cartridges are mass made. Yes its possible that if you have a inkjet refill store near that they would do the fitting of the plugs into a bob cassette. Not like its going to need different drilling set up. Just they will need to know where on the cassette are the valid locations to put the two holes and unless the cartridge has changed since the photos I can see the locations are really clearly marked as they did not even bother colour matching the closing ports plastic.

Other thing you will find is a cartridge will most likely have a max refill count before some part of it comes a risk to crack or other wise fail. This is why its important to use refill ports and the like in attempts to make this as many cycles as possible. Yes the refilling ports are likely to have a stronger band of plastic around it so when filling in the factory if the machine was a little off don't have a breakage.

The cassettes are similar to inkjet cartridges<< Yes the i2c DRM on these cassettes are the same as early drm inkjet cartridge. Some early inkjet cartridges also do use the one way membrane before changing to foam. So these cassettes are very much early drm inkjet cartridges just filled with dish-washing chemicals. To be correct inkjet cartridges where the tanks are split from the printer head. Yes the filling ports of the factory also being really simple to spot is another thing of historic thing of early inkjet cartridges latter generations of inkjet cartridges where they started getting smart with their chips and hiding the correct refill ports.

This could turn into a wacky side job for a shop that does inkjet refills making bob cassettes properly refillable.

While I can't find the EXACT product, my googlefu is failing me, the other tank appears to be something like this:

https://www.kiilto.com/product/f-60-ciro/#compositions

However the formulation doesn't match exactly, it has citric acid in it as well.

Dosage would be 35ml in a currently unknown amount of water.

The packaging details:
35ml/1 dose.
UFI: CM57-N0DW-W00G-D6CR
Composition: Methanesulfonic Acid

Hello,

I ordered a casette rewinder last week, but was wondering about the impact of the chemical composition of the detergent and rinse acid. I found and purchased Sun Professional Rinse Aid and Finish Professional Liquid Detergent, which both seem to match (approximately) in dilution requirements.

That said, their chemical composition is different and I want to avoid damaging the dishwasher.

Finish Professional Liquid Detergent

• Phosphates 5% - 15%
• Chlorine-Based Bleaching Agents < 5%
• Polycarboxylates < 5%

Sun Professional Rinse Aid

TBD

What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks!

Hi, is it possible to use an Arduino to write the counter on a cassette and if yes are you planning on writing some kind of tutorial?

Does anyone have info on what USA available product I could buy for the Pop and Rock'n'Roll refills?

Preordering the bob for USA drop in September soon (already got the Rewriter on the way) and having some trouble finding equivalent product here.

Hello,

First, thanks for all the work!

Unfortunately, Tindie's does not collect VAT at ordering, and so if you order from the EU you will (probably??) need to pay VAT yourself, along with hefty processing fees (I assume because of the new import rules that came in effect July 1st).

I don't know how easy it would be to find a platform which complies with EU VAT rules, but I think it would be good to mention this, here on GitHub and/or on Tindie's to avoid surprises for people like me who may not realize they are ordering from abroad :). Especially since a lot of people with Bobs are probably French.

I had to pay 21€ to the Belgian post in VAT and processing fees to receive the chip :(

Hi, I wanted to make myself a bob cassette rewinder as a project to practice my home-made pcb skills. However I can't find what type of connector you use on your custom PCB to interface with the cassette EEPROM. I'm talking about the one named JP1 (PINHEAD_2X04) on the schematics. As I understand using a female USB-A connector would short the pads on the cassette, so it has to be plastic.

Thanks!

Hi !

I'm considering trying out this bob business, but I'd like to make sure. As of January 2022, have there been any update preventing the hack ? Obviously I'll never connect the device to my network, but I'm worried they patched the product on shelves.

Sorry if there was the info somewhere, I read your manual, but could have missed it.

Hi, I’ve looked at the documentation of the EPROM and saw that it has a write protect pin.

Did you try out connecting the WP pin to Vcc?

I want to try and connect the detergent tanks directly to the internal dosage pumps of bob to avoid having to refill the cassettes.
I’d still need the EPROM of the Cassette to get it to work tho.
So my train of thought is that Bob couldn’t modify the value on the EPROM anymore, reading the same number of cycles every time.

Also sorry if im getting things wrong… it’s been quite a few years since I worked on anything electronic :|

Thanks anyways :)

I just ordered a Bob and was trying to figure things out.
I came across this page:
https://daan.tech/eur/discover-bob-cassette/safety-data-sheet/

If you look at the first safety sheet it looks like they are now using an all in one gel from Finish.
So they may have switched to a different detergent.

The 2nd safety sheet is for EXEOL/SODEL DPC 600, a descaling product.
If I google it, you have to use this in an empty machine.
So this will be what is now in the rock'n'roll cassette.

It would not surprise me that the eeprom is not only used to count, but also to indicate how much detergent should be used.
So the contents of the EEPROM may now be different.

When I get my Bob in a few weeks, I would like to try making a dump of the EEPROM to see if there is a difference.

Thank you for your investigation here, and your work on making a rewinder!

While I wouldn't be sure how to do it, as I'm not much of a tinkerer, could you not modify a cartridge (or maybe two, one Pop one R&R) to use something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_ink_system

I figure the easiest way would be to pipe up a Pop cartridge with a count of 90 washes with an inbuilt reset module, and when those 90 are done, use a piped up or refillable-plugged R&R cartridge with it's own inbuilt reset module. You'd save space inside them for the electronics by emptying the tanks and carving them away.

Hello everyone,

does someone know where I can get dishwater detergent & rinse aid for the EU Market / German Market? On German Sites I find only b2b offers but nother for customers.

Maybe you know which dealer sells it for non-business customers.

Thanke you.