Paradise Robotics Forum
Robotic Lawnmowers => Lawnbott => Topic started by: oldienea on April 24, 2010, 07:13:48 PM
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I have here a Lawnbot Evolution. I bought it 2006, but it was only the last two years, since it is really working on normal conditon. Before it was only used occasionly and mostly recharged monthly with the winter charger. The yard was not arranged for it (to many rocks, uneven ground). This lawnbot has still his original firmware and it was never upgraded, modded or whatsoever.
Now it has some wired behaviour. It comes out of the charger station, crosses the lawn to the perimeter. Then it follows the perimeter back to the charger house. The battery has 28,7 volts, before it starts and 27,8 volts, when it is back after about 10 to 15 minutes runtime.
The charger blinks red/green (5/10 pattern). Before I often heared the fan of the charger goes on as soon the mower is back to recharge. Now it's a wile since the fan was not heared anymore. However, the battery gets allways his recharge. The display also showes "charging" when the mower is in the station. The recharge counter shows 416 recharges. Did anybody else come across with a similar issue.
Dead battery maybee? Why the fan of the charger dont run, when charging.
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Just a thought, but I remember something like this. It was happening to me when I would try to run the bot outside of the 'programmed' times.
I would hit the charge button with the bot in the hut to get the bot to run. The bot would come out, run accross the lawn to the first wire border and go home.
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I've seen the same behavior as well (when running outside the programmed times). Hopefully the fact that you don't hear the charger fan kick in is because it is trickle charging as the battery is already charged. But, you will see on the screen "Search Charge" when running outside the programmed times, so make sure the bot has the correct time, and that it's allowed to be running. If all this checks out, what does the battery level on the bot say when it is running.
If you have an old version like me (2006-ish as well), you should be able to hold up the back end from the handle (that is supposed to turn off the motor blade, but doesn't) and read the display. See what the battery level is and that should tell you if the bot thinks the battery is dead or not. If you are above 2700 you should be fine (though it should be in the 2900 range after a full charge)
If it appears to be a low/dead battery problem, I would try killing the battery and then doing a full charge from there. It has been mentioned on another forum that using the winter charging kit to much could also damage the battery. Killing the battery and then fully charging it may reset the levels of the battery so it actually knows it's capable range.