All about StarFiber Microfiber cloth (Used in Mint Cleaner)

Extracted from http://http://www.starfibers.com/

What is Microfiber?

Microfiber consists of very fine threads of polyester and polyamide (nylon) that combine to form a single thread. Microfibers are so thin (100 times thinner than a single strand of human hair) that when they are woven together they create a surface area 40 times more than that of a regular fiber – creating an expanded surface area with dramatically enhanced absorbing power due to the capillary action of the fine threads. Microfiber is traditionally defined as a fiber with a denier of less than one. Denier is a measure of thinness of fiber and is the weight in grams of a continuous fiber of 9,000 meters.

As each microfiber strand may be smaller than the bacteria it is attracting, it is able to penetrate microscopic particles of dirt and grease on a surface. Split microfiber possesses numerous wedges instead of the rounded surfaces on ordinary cloth, sweeping underneath the particles and trapping them inside. In addition, the rounded fibers on most cloths only push the dirt around, whereas the wedge-shaped microfibers grab the particles of dirt and pull the dirt into its dense internal structure. Furthermore, chemicals only become necessary as a disinfectant, as the bonding agent is no longer necessary to keep the dirt on the fiber.

Microfiber has two polymers. Polyester is lyophilic, or has an affinity to oil, so that oil and grease adhere directly to the fibers. Polyamide is hydrophilic, which means it has an affinity to water. As a result, any type of dirt is very quickly and completed removed with microfiber, leaving a sparkling clean, streak-free surface. Microfiber cleans without streaking, smearing, scratching or leaving lint. Microfiber is safe to use on all delicate surfaces. It will clean without scratching or harming the surface in any way.

Ordinary cleaning towels move or push dirt and dust from one place to another - microfiber actually lifts or scoops the dirt and stores the dirt particles in the towel, until it is washed. Microfiber can absorb up to seven times its weight in fluids. Microfiber cloths are also extremely durable. They can be washed up to 1000 times and still maintain their effectiveness. This makes it an extremely cost effective product. Machine wash or hand-wash microfiber with mild soapy water.

That explains why you do not need to add soap/floor detergent onto the microfiber cleaning pads and also the reason on why some of them in the market are not so effective.

What Mint Cleaner is and is not..

Recently, I had received some questions about the comparison between Mint Cleaner and Roomba. I will hereby like to provide the information based on Mint Cleaner manual:

What Mint is not?

1) Mint is not a toy.

2) Mint do not pick up large debris, liquid spills, bleach and paint.

3) Mint does not work on carpet.



What Mint is?

1) Mint is for indoor household use only.

2) Mint is for hard surface floors use only.




Thus, Mint cleaner does not work like Roomba in the first place and is not designed to be one either. Mint sweeps and mops your floor. You do not need Roomba and Scooba to achieve that.

Mint Cleaner - Mopping action with fStarFibre microfibre cloth

I have just performed some testing on Mint Cleaner using "sweep" and "mop" option. Both works great!  It was amazing to see robotics technology has advanced further to provide feasible solution on our daily chores. Soon, manual floor sweeping and mopping will be a thing of a past. Hello Robots.. Good bye broom and mops!

Below is the video that I had captured on Mint while using "mop" option. Also for this time round, Northstar Navigation cube was turned on to ensure Mint cleaner got good information on its current coordinates and cleans the room efficiently by constantly mapping the area that it had covered. Also do note that the microfibre cloth that comes with Mint Cleaner is from StarFibre. You can read about StarFibre from here.

My very first Trial Run on Mint Cleaner

After having charged my Mint Cleaner for 16 hours, it is ready for its very first trial run!








As you can see and hear, it is very quiet. It is able to navigate to tough corners and has the ability to navigate itself out from the corner and continue to move on to unclean area.

Do also note that I did not place the NorthStar navigation cube on the table or anywhere near Mint. The surprising thing is that Mint is still able to know that it has covered almost the entire area of the table top after going over the same area for 2 or 3 times. It is indeed very efficient in utilizing the limited power provided by the battery pack which the Mint Cleaner's manaufacturer , Evolution Robotics Inc claims that it can goes up to 3 hours of maximum usage!

Hurray! My Mint Cleaner has just arrived!

Today is a very exciting day for me. Why? It is because I had just received my Mint Automatic Floor Cleaner from US.

This is a special robot that is able to help you sweep and mop your house using reusable micro fibre cloth. It works quite similar to Roomba and Scooba except that it does not have a vacuum bin and does not require you to fill up its container with cleaning fluid like Chlorox. It is small and portable and best of all, it is very quiet and not as noisy as your vacuum cleaner or even your Roomba or Scooba robotic cleaner!

Mint Cleaner works quite similarly to Swiffer but the key benefit is that you do not need to manually sweep or mop it yourself. With Mint Cleaner, you can automate this manual process and have more time for your family and letting this robot to do what he does best which is to clean your floor.

I had currently entrusted my daily cleaning job to my Roomba 535 and I shall see whether Mint is able to replace or complement Roomba's job. I shall update this blog and share with you on my experience on Mint.

Do stay tuned!