Let me see if I understand what happened.

You got a robot that you knew was defective. You opened it up and noticed that insulation was defective, leaving bare wires exposted. Then you decided to load it up with batteries and turn it on.

You finished up by letting it sit there, short, smoke, and get hot enough to melt plastic and burst batteries. 

Yup. You killed it.

Now it's a bookend. 

Rather than buy the many parts you may need to resurrect this toasted toy, you may be better off finding a "broken" RSV2 that has a motor or joint problem, and using your current scrap pile as the donor parts for the mechanical parts of the less defective robot. 

What you could have done, before powering up the bad wiring harness, is follow the instructions available in various threads in this community to replace the wires, or at least repair the insulation. 

ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)

Nope. It wasn't a "good RSV2". 

It was reportedly suffering from the insulation failures that plagued some fraction of the RSV2 production run.

It may well have already been electronically toast (but not yet melted). Now it sounds pretty well cooked. It needs a new wiring harness and foot pieces, at a minimum. That's just the stuff described as visibly trashed. It may also have toasted some of the control boards. 

ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)

Yes, I think your cheapest route is to find another dead one (or two!). You'll probably have to fabricate your own replacement wiring harness, since I don't know of anyone who has spares of those!

Visit my Roving RoboReporter blog!

Here's the general outline of what you'll need to do.

1. dissasemble the shell to access all the wiring in the legs and torso
2. replace or repair all wiring that has bad insulation
3. replace or repair all obviously damaged electronics
4. try powering it up to see how far you get
5. continue replacing components as needed

Since you'll be needing a fair amount of components if you want to replace the scorched and melted parts, you'll need another robot. WowWee doesn't sell parts.

Since you'll need another robot, your path to robot nirvana might be shorter if you...

1. obtain another defective robot from whatever sources you have
2. inspect it well before powering it on
3. repair any wiring harness issues before powering it on
4. isolate the defects that caused the previous owner to junk it
5. hope that pieces for the burned-bot can be used to fix the 2nd bot

ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)

As a follow up, there are often folks looking for one odd bit or other. Different things break on different robots. There certainly are some weak points that crop up again and again, but not every robot is knocked out of commission by the same failure each time.

We've seen repeated reports of the crumbling wires, and of lost teeth on the rack and pinion gripper gears. Another user had a retaining clip for a gripper cable pop loose. Some folks are just looking for replacement foot pads. 

That being the case, you might want to hang onto your toasted toy to either trade parts with other users, or to resupply your own primary bot with slightly sooty replacement parts.

ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)

You know what the really fragile thing in roboreptile is? It's mouth cable.

J. T.
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