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Author Topic: professional mows for 15 minutes, goes back to house  (Read 10773 times)

whitey

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professional mows for 15 minutes, goes back to house
« on: April 21, 2010, 06:04:32 PM »
  my professional starts out of the station at about 2725, mows for 15 minutes, charge goes to 2400 or less, it goes back to get charged. battery charger shows green when charging, readout on robot says it is getting a charge. voltage in both batteries is 12 volts, voltage across charging plates is 27+ volts. mower wont leave house unless i do it manually by hitting charge button.  grass is not tall. batteries are about  1 1/2 years old. now what? ??? :(

RoyMercer

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Re: professional mows for 15 minutes, goes back to house
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2010, 08:14:00 PM »
Hi Whitey- do you know if your professional has lead acid batteries? When you checked the charging plate voltage was the robot in the charger?  If not can you check it with a load on the charger (after the robot has been charging overnight)? Is your unit under warranty? How old is your machine? What type of meter are you using to test the voltage?

The most important test is to check the batteries a few minutes after drawing current by loading the batteries running the bot for just a few minutes (after overnight charging) then test the battery voltage on each battery. Your voltages lead me to suspect you have lead acid batteries and one or both may be bad. A failed fully charged lead acid battery can read rated voltage if tested un-loaded. I am not sure about the Lawnbott lead acid batteries but It is not uncommon to see lead acid batteries fail in 12 months when used in a deeply dis-charged environment such as a robotic lawn mowers. Do you have a winter charger? Have you cleaned the charging plates and charging nuts?

RobotLady

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Re: professional mows for 15 minutes, goes back to house
« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2010, 09:39:59 PM »
Whitey you have lead acid batteries, the voltage is lower than Li.  It sounds like it might be time to replace them or invest in Lithium Ion.  We can upgrade your battery charger so you will not have to buy a new one.  You cannot run the Li battery without updating the charger (you will send it in and have us do it).  Note, for sure we are seeing 4 or more years battery life on the Li batteries, it's worth it...

Bill S

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Re: professional mows for 15 minutes, goes back to house
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2010, 10:59:54 AM »
I might look into upgrading to the lithium ion battery.  My mow time is down to about 45 minutes per charge.  Seems the SLA batteries last about a season and a haft.

What's is the cost of the charger update ?

RobotLady

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Re: professional mows for 15 minutes, goes back to house
« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2010, 01:23:59 PM »
It is free, except for shipping cost to return it to you, when you purchase your Li battery from us.  Shipping will probably be less than $10.00.

Jerry

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Re: professional mows for 15 minutes, goes back to house
« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2010, 02:00:51 PM »
You can adjust your charger yourself it is easy to do. To do this place your charger flat with the fan facing you now you need to remove the plastic cover that is over the end of the unit to do this use a flat head screw driver and lift one of the tabs up a little bit and you will be able to slide it  down, then go to the other end but still the same side with the fan and do the same thing and the whole piece will slide off, next you will see a screw on each side of the unit that is holding the whole fan unit in place after you remove the screws you will be able to remove the fan(the wires on the fan are long enough that you will be able to get it at of your way with out a problem) once the fan is out of the way you will see a POT with a Phillips adjustment( you can’t miss it it is the only thing inside there that can be adjusted) that you will need a small Phillips head screw driver a regular size will probably do if you don’t have a small one, now to adjust the voltage you will need a voltmeter and if you have the winter charger you should be able to connect the meter to the winter charger and adjust the voltage to 29.5V by yourself if you don’t have the winter charger you will need some one to put the meter on the charging plates while you adjust the voltage to 29.5V. Also make sure you change the settings of the mower to lithium B
« Last Edit: April 27, 2010, 09:45:03 AM by Jerry »

jzawacki

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Re: professional mows for 15 minutes, goes back to house
« Reply #6 on: April 23, 2010, 08:42:49 AM »
Why do that if you have to buy a Li-ion battery anyway?  Ship'em the charger and let the pros do it.  At least that way, if it destroys the new battery, you can blame it on them and not leave the question that you may have destroyed it by accident.

RoyMercer

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Re: professional mows for 15 minutes, goes back to house
« Reply #7 on: April 23, 2010, 06:25:59 PM »
I'd have to say I concur with Jzawacki. Even if your unit is out of warranty the new batteries will have a warranty. There is a fine line between charging and destroying your batteries. That is a lot of money to risk when all you need to do is ship off your charger. A thin layer of corrosion cause several 10th's of a volt error on your meter reading and if your meter is not accurate you add even more error and list goes on and on.

Also, it is my opinion because of reason's listed above, 29.5 volts is too high of a number. Unless I missed something, 29.3 should be the factory unloaded output and that is where I would start but regardless, I would rate myself at a fairly high level in electronic theory, testing and troubleshooting to the component level and I would not set my own charger if I where in whitey shoes. Also some industrial lithium battery packs contain not only a low voltage shut down circuit (required by the Feds) but also protection for over charging.  1/10th of a volt per cell too much can trigger circuit protection. Most lithium ion batteries will over charge when more than 4.2 volts per cell is applied. The battery pack will last much longer when 4.1 volts per cell is applied for charging. That is assuming these batteries are lithium Ion. Lithium Iron is altogether different. If I remember correctly that max charge per cell for lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) is like 3.6 volts per cell.  I do not know how many cells are in the Lawnbott batteries. I'm suspect they compensate for voltage drops from the wire length and connections so its difficult to know with just their charge voltage. However I don't mean ANY disrespect to Jerry, he probably does know what he is doing. Like I said its only my opinion and we all know what opinions are like.... everyone has one.

Namocsid

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Re: professional mows for 15 minutes, goes back to house
« Reply #8 on: April 26, 2010, 10:15:53 AM »
I was having some trouble with my power supply recently and had Vishal replace it under warranty.  After that, it wouldn't kick into "Fast charge" mode.  Vishal gave me instructions on how to increase the voltage 29.5V, so that's what he recommends...

 

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