LB3550 Flipping itself over with new Double Spiked Wheels - help!

[RoboBob]

Greetings All,

The rubber wheels on my 3550 were getting pretty worn (one side only had the middle nubs of the tread left) - after a rain it would sometimes get stuck and dig holes.  I installed a set of the double hook spiked wheels on it.  From the aesthetics perspective it makes the lawnbot look like a contender on Battlebots (a good look in my opinion ;-)) - not so much after a few trips in the yard and the spikes and crevices pickup twigs, leaves, etc ;-)  on a functional note - it no longer gets stuck in soft parts of the yard now :-D

The first downer is that it now flips itself over when bumping into trees.

The dealer (not paradise robotics - though now thinking of making them my default dealer I work with now) suggested I upgrade the software on the lawnbott (I believe it was on a 2009 version) and ordered their USB/serial cable - besides a annoying shipping fiasco - I received the cable and updated the robot to the latest version - Wow - the robot's behavior now seems more "refined" - It wasn't just charging at the lawn at full speed now and seemed more "aware" and seemed to moved a bit slower.  I thought for sure this would fix the robot flipping itself over problem.....nope....

I find it taking a nap again this morning...




I should add:
- watching it for 20 minutes - it doesn't do this for every tree it bumps into - rather I think it needs to hit it a particular angle for this to happen - however according to the errors - this seems to be happening within 45-90 minutes of it doing its automatic cycle.

- Before the software upgrade, I tried various placements of the second set of batteries - it seemed to flip over slightly less likely when moving them forward in the chassis instead of the default location of right under the big flat double battery - the added benefit is there is more spacing between the 3 batteries and wheel motors - so hopefully less heat build up.

... really hoping the solution is not to run perimeter wire around all the trees - I am already at 1900' of wire - would need to get a signal booster...

... awaiting to hear back from the seller to see what my next steps should be.  In the mean time any ideas?


Downer #2 - Not sure if I hit a bad batch of Double hooked Spiked wheels or my yard is really hostile to them.  Within 3 days of installing the new wheels - the inner spikes of the right wheels broke off





- the dealer communicated with Kyodo and they sent me a replacement wheel.  Installed it last night along with upgrading the software - only to find this morning the same thing happened with the left wheel...



You can see my yard partially in the background of some of the pictures -my lawn is not the picture perfect bermuda grass perfectly flat with no trees - however its not that bad right? not enough to break the polymer spiked wheels?

[toolbelt]

I'm surprised that your question hasn't been answered by now....

I would take the cover off and make sure the 'bump' sensors are not blocked in any way.  If they don't work the bott is going to try and climb the trees and end up on it's back since I don't see any wheely bars attached.

Even wheely bars would have a hard time stopping that.


toolbelt

[RobotLady]

I'm sorry to hear you purchased your robot from another dealer.  We do not encounter this problem with our customers because we always tell them to wire out the trees for LB35XX, LB32XX, LB300EL & LB200EL.  LB75DX and LB85EL are much better with obstacles.

One of our motivations for wiring out trees with the larger robots is to improve long term reliability (no failure of the bump sensors, less wear and tear on the motors) and a second motivation is to keep the outer shell looking nice.  It gets all scuffed up from bumping.

It is not for sure that you will need a signal booster, though.  Keep in mind that running the signal up to the tree and back puts more signal in the middle of the lawn.  The requirement is that the signal is everywhere.  When you put more signal in the middle of the lawn, the fact that the signal gets reduced by the extra wire may not matter at all.

We have 11 trees wired out on our lawn - you can daisy chain them to minimize the wire length and also go the shortest distance from the perimeter.  Just make sure you put the wire about 16 inches away from the points on the tree that are over 2" tall.  Mulch will avoid all trimming.  LawnBott will not disturb the mulch (no wind underneath).

Here is the link to our wire page.  We have these awesome new outdoor wire connectors that will make patching in the wire very easy.  You can also buy just the amount of wire you need from us because we'll make a special order for you from a local distributor.

http://www.paradiserobotics.com/lawnbottrobotmowers/lawnbott500ftwire.htm

Just go ahead and wire out the trees and then see how the robot performs.  It might be fine without the booster.  It's a lot better than fighting this problem and then you will also have the advantage of no wheel slippage with the spikes.

RobotLady