These robots are driving me nuts! I drop them and then something blows me up. Is it because I am mainly playing melee and not wearing power armor?

Some of them and all the legendary robots will explode a few seconds after they die. This might be the problem

Yep ^^^^ this ^^^^^

So much for my stealth and cautious moving! Kill big bot and run!

idk man, I just hack them all and explode them myself. I didn't know they also explode if you killed them.

I kept going boom after killing them and picking at their bones. Now I dash away and hope for the best before looting.

Some will also set to self destruct if you cripple their weaponry. If you see them turning orange, get the F away.

All Sentry Bots, or Sentry Bot-like robots, Legendaries, or severley crippled enemies will explode so you gotta stay away from 'em for a little after the kill. Legendaries have a pretty large blow up radius, and if you command them to Self-destruct they will explode twice, so don't use the first explosion as a sign to move in for loot!

Some of the robots are legendary, but they weren't really dropping any large amount of grenades in my run through. Tons and tons of laser fire, but not grenades on me. But I noticed after the 1.4 patch that some things just sometimes seem to be throwing grenades a lot more often. I had this happening when I wasn't in fights. Literally boom explosion after explosion after explosion. Often without any enemy within sight or in VATS. But this only seemed to last like a week and then it went away.

But there was certainly a time when everything seemed to dropped like 10 grenades in my area, and there were explosions all around me. My main is a stleath/sniper build and they most often missed me, but it was brutal on my companions . I also have the perks where I don't set off mines and traps when I walk over them. So I don't think it was traps.

I don't know if this is it, but coincidentally the patch 1.4 was new and I had just upgraded my explosions perk. I do give grenades to my companions to let them throw them. As a sniper I don't usually need grenades. So maybe my companions were just a bit grenade happy . Do you give grenades to your companions? As if they throw it near you, it seems to affect you if you don't have the perk that stops you and them from hurting each other.