Friday 31 July 2015

Neato XV Signature pro vision blocked error

I got this robotic vacuum cleaner a while ago. Don't remember when I bought it. Maybe 4 months ago?
Two days ago it started having this annoying error, "My vision was blocked. Please press OKAY (4027)"

Just pressing OKAY will start it again, and it will run for 10 seconds and stop again. It can stop anywhere, no black or shiny objects nearby. At first I was afraid something was broken. But then I remember that I have never fully discharged my battery, as it says in the manual, you should do that sometimes but not too often.

As with almost every manual you read something like "Make sure the battery is fully discharged before charging it", "avoid quick, short charges" etc. A lot of people say that this is not true.

But I have a feeling that it might be true, well it should be true anyway. Lol, a "feeling" is not really proof of anything, but just my intuition. So I did fully discharge the battery by keeping it away from the charger and using spot-clean a few times until it complained on low batteries. Then I waited till it just shut down. And trying to start it again would just turn it off.

Then I let it charge over night and clean in the morning according to schedule. And it worked! It cleaned my entire apartment without any errors.

But then I messed up again, I read somewhere that it was better to shut the unit off completely when not using it. By switching off the power switch that is hidden in the dustbin compartment. I don't clean everyday, maybe just a few times a week, so what is the point having it in the charger all the time. But I think that it reset the memory and everything. It did reset the clock *grrr*.
And maybe it reset any memory it has on my apartment layout, which I guess it has. I started it again and then it wanted to charge the battery again, just like it was an empty battery. Although it was a fully charged battery. Overcharging is never good I thought. So I was a little bit afraid that I had f*ed it up.

I let it clean my apartment again. And it was going around randomly like it did the first few times. Getting the vision error I think once or twice. I decided to let the battery fully discharge once more and charge over night. So I was hopeful this morning that it would not get the vision error, but it did :( 5 or 6 times. But just pressing the button will make it go again.

I hate it when things brakes. Usually you're afraid it is completely broken and goes back with it to the store. When the error itself sometimes is just very easy.

I noticed that when it starts to get the vision error, the battery symbol shows a completly depleted battery. So therefore I think that this is a battery problem.

There is some battery calibration procedure in the Neato. I don't know if that is only for use when replacing the old battery with a completely new battery. I need to check what the manual says about that.

But I suspect that the program in the Neato "thinks" that there is more battery power left than there really is, resulting in lasers and the spinning thing it sits on doesn't get enough power. But I am just guessing. I'll read about battery calibration, If I keep getting this error I might buy a new battery. If that doesn't fix the problem. I will make use of the extra insurance I paid for it.

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