*Sigh* you won't believe it. New Neato problems....

Neato can't find the charger... Yes again. On the third one. It might just have been a one time thing, because it kept getting stuck on things.

It does work better than my second one. It works just as good as my first one did in the beginning.

Today it kept getting stuck underneath my tv room table. And then suddenly it couldn't find back to its charger "again". *sigh*

It is one of those things thay ruins my day for me. I need to forget about stupid things like that.

I think it might get confused because it often gets stuck on my doorsteps. All three of them did. And I move them a bit to get them going again, and maybe it's room orientation gets "out of sync" somehow. And when it want's to go back to the charger, the memory of the track back to the charger is all shifted and rotated around. That is my guess. So it might not be a big problem. And it doesn't happen all the time, it happens very rarely.

It got stuck under the bed in the guest room. My mother wanted to get it out of there the most difficult way. By moving the entire bed and... I don't know. I just said stop. I can reach it. And I moved it out of the room and then I pressed resume docking. And how stubborn is the little stupid thing. It wanted to get in there AGAIN under her bed going into the wall until it runs out of power. I have hade three neatos doing exactly this now. And it is ALWAYS under the bed in the guest room.

It is kind of opposite of the direction it should go. So I lifted it up and put it by the charger, or very close to it, like 1,5 meter or so. Then it found the charger and went back to it to charge.

Yesterday it was cleaning sooo good. Only took about two hours to complete the entire apartment. Most efficient cleaning any of my three robots has done so far. My old ones could clean from 7 to 12 till it was done with the apartmment... it just makes me worried now that this one is going to break down also. I just hope it doesn't.

I noticed in the store, that they have removed all the Neato XV Signature Pro, they only have BotVac 85 now. When I get a new one I will buy the BotVac Connected. Seems to be just like the D85, but with an smartphone app for it.

I am afraid that the little bounce it has to make everytime it passes a doorstep is damaging the camera or laser "eye" that scans the room somehow.

And, there were some new things to pick up at the postoffice today, three packages. A new replacement Neato ofcourse that I already talked about. Settlers of Catan that is said to be one of the best trading/strategy games. I have never played it before. A new "New Nintendo 3DS", this time in XL format, and in a limited white Happy Home Designer design. I think it was cute :)

I also got a 32Gb SD Micro for the 3DS. So I won't worry about running out of memory on it. I have not installed that yet, Also some new charger stuff for the 3DS, memory and charger stuff all came in the same package.

I got alot of things in the mail to pick up at the postoffice on the same day.

Neato stopped again

So, somtimes it cleans the house without any stops. And sometimes it just stops for no apperent reason. This time there was no message at all, it didn't say "Paused" on the screen. It looked like it had just had canceled cleaning.

But when I pushed the button I was able to choose "Resume cleaning", so that worked.

By the way, it did say "Please empty my dirt bin" but it wasn't even full when I looked. Could that be the reason it stopped maybe. My old one often had this message, but it didn'r stop cleaning because of it.

I disabled dirt bin warning, so lets see how that works then next time.

I think it has some software bugs that needs to be fixed. But Neato Robotics seems to be very very slow with software updates.

Update:
I run it again today, and it keeps stopping for no reason.

I notice that the battery is quite low. But it doesn't warn about low battery, the leds are still green. And I can still press resume cleaning.

Maybe I should try the battery calibration thing on this one too.

Neato update

My robotic vacuum cleaner started at 07:00 as usual.

Still interested to see if it is going to clean everything without random stops.

So far so good.

Morning coffee

Something that I forgot. My morning coffe. Just thinking about my coffee sometimes can get me a positive boost in the morning.

And the Neato was making one stop at the fan. Not a big problem. But it didn't get stuck there yesterday.

Neato pauses cleaning after 50 minutes

So today I was going to see if my Neato vacuum cleaner really was pausing at the same spot and after exactly the same time.

It's true. Today it stopped very close to the same spot it stopped on yesterday. After 50minutes of cleaning. Yesterday it was 47minutes.

"House cleaning - paused"

Think I am going to try it a few more days. I don't really have the energy to go back with it to the store.

I need to go to the dentist today. So I could do both. But... no. I don't have the energy, I don't have that social willingness in me today. Can't explain it. But I feel like just being at home today. But I have to go to the dentist. Also buy more Risifrutti.

But I'm thinking. Maybe I should leave in my Neato. It would feel good maybe to just let that problem go from my mind.

Neato paused yet again

Hmm. "House cleaning - paused" again. And also close to the same location it has paused on before.

I'm starting to get worried again.
This time I didn't wait an hour. I just started it again.

Sometimes I feel like throwing it as hard as I can on the floor. But I won't. It wouldn't fix the problem anyway.

Don't know if I should run this tedious battery calibration routine again. I should let it go for a few days when I am not at home.

*upset* It can't just stop like this with such trivial and stupid causes... "I have paused", so what? Just continue cleaning then. It is supposed to be autonomous for f*k sake. It isn't supposed to have a babysitter guarding it all the time.

Goodmorning everyone, Neato is paused.

Neato got stuck once With the message "Clear my path". Instead of pushing the button. I just pushed it a little bit forward. Just a millimeter, didn't need much. Worked fine.

Now it is standing here decided to take a break. "House cleaning - paused". So lets see if it is an endless break from work or not.

It should say "Neato - Siesta". I know it is 2arm.

Atleast it ran fine for 47 mimutes before stopping. That is good information. Lets see if is always ~47minutes.

But now about me: I keep having microsleeps. I suppoe it must be some medication. I go into a quicksleep, amd then my body twitches.

Anyway, if I could just figure out what is  wrong with it. Maybe I can do so. Has it had siesta now for an hour *sigh*.

The little robot destroys life for me.

Goodmorning and also goodmorning to my little assistant

I just recently woke up. I think I took something for anxiety and pain at 5 maybe. Then I started a bag of tube feeding. That is finished now.

But I am still tired, probably becauase of the anxiety and painkillers I took. I keep falling asleep completly unnoticed. My eyelilds just fall down and It is like I keep thinking what I was thinking, following that line of thought and then all of a sudden I find out that I am sleeping and abruptly wake. I can hold my Phone like this and keep writing. And then keep dreaming that I am writing,  then suddenly drop the phone on my face and then wake up.

At this very second I do feel alot of  motivation and happines. I hope it will stay with me during the day.

***And oh, I just got one of these minisleeps I was writing about above. Something about pokemons***

And yeah, my beloved house keeper. The Neato. It started like it should this morning. This time I filmed it.

I was pressing the OKAY button repeatedly, doesn't work. It works sometimes just press OKAY when it is stuck with the message "clear my path". It will continue like normal.

But if I move it a millimeter or so it starts again, even with out pressing the button. Just give it a tiny tiny push.

I needed to add those mats over the doorsteps/thresholds. Othewise it can't get over at all.

Those mats was NEVER a problem with my first Neato. Infact it fixed the problem, my first Neato was always getting stuck on the doorsteps. After the mats was put there it just went over easily.

It makes it so that both wheels get a good grip when climbing over the doorstep no matter what direction it is going in.

I have  been thinking though that it might lead to the room scanning going crazy. Because it somtimes scans the room while being tilted. But the engineers should have thought of that. Putting in an ADXL circuit that detects what direction is down is easy, so that it can sense that it is tilted.. even I have done that..

I'm blogging on my phone, and I keep dropping the phone and falling into short sleeps. I need some Coffee .

Update on my Neato XV Signature Pro problems

Yes, I know. I can't leave this. My brain will not leave this problem alone and delete it from my mind until I get a good understanding of what is wrong. I have to either fix the problem, or find out if it really is a broken unit.

There are two options:

1. I want to get my money back and get the Neato BotVac D85 and see how much better it is. But in that case I want it now! Not in 1 week, not in 2 weeks. But ASAP, preferably instantly. Because at any time, some day during next week, I might be hospitalized for some serious thing happening with my cancer situation. And then I can't enjoy having a new shiny vacuum cleaner to get happy over. And they don't have the D85 at NetOnNet, I have to order it in another store. I like NetOnNet, they have good customer service. Maybe they can order it, even if it is not in their line of products, I can't see that they have it on their homepage. They have the BotVac 85, but I don't know what the difference is other that it is white.


2. I find out that there is no problem with my current Neato XV Signature Pro. It is I that have been doing something wrong. Or it is a overheating problem, like I have read online. Some people say that it does random errors because of overheating, and that they have fixed it by installing heatsinks. And that does sound plausible infact, because it has been very warm weather recently. And my apartment got windows all around so that it's almost like a greenhouse in here. But I'm not going to install heatsinks, because I do not want to break my warranty.
   
   

This morning it started it's scheduled cleaning at 07:00. I was sleeping in the couch. And it sounded like it was cleaning the house normally. I could hear it go over the doorsteps and into other rooms etc. It also conveniently stopped right below me where I was lying in the couch. It had stopped on a bottle that had fell on the floor, and the Neato had the message "clear my path". Nothing really wrong with that, it was stuck with good cause. So I fixed that and resumed it's cleaning cycle.

After some time it needed to go back and charge, it was at this point it started going crazy. It went straight into walls, in the opposite direction of where the charging unit really is located. It seemed confused, it's sense of where it was located seemed to be off.

It was going around randomly, bumping around, getting "clear my path" messages. It stopped occasionally with the message that it was trying to figure out it's location. I don't remember what that message is exactly. But it does this normally, it's rotating slowly kind of examining the environment. It did this often, more often than usual. But it kept going straight into things.

I didn't want to wait for it to go around randomly like this until it found the charger. I could have done that, maybe I should have, but I didn't have patience. When it had stopped randomly at some place with a "clear my path" message, I moved it by hand closer to the charger. And pressed "okay". And it did find the charger station and went back to charging.

This was an in-the-middle-of-cleaning charging. So it would resume cleaning later.

When it had finished charging. It was at this point it started going this crazy.

It was just going round and round like this until it's battery was low. But surprisingly enough found it's way back to the charger to charge again. And when it had finished charging it just went back to do this thing again... Like in it's little brain, it doesn't know where it is located or where it is supposed to go.

If the Neato program builds up a map of the apartment, which I have understood that it is supposed to do. I think of it as a video game glitch where you get outside the map. Or activating noclip in Quake. Is this what has happened here?

I do not know. But I can go back to the store and tell them that I think this unit is faulty as well. It acts weird, it doesn't find the charger, it goes around and around on one spot (Not spot cleaning! this is scheduled normal house cleaning).

Anyway, what I have done now is that I have power cycled it. I disconnected the battery for a while and then reconnected it again. So it should have been reset, I think.

In the beginning my replacement unit had the problem that it was stopping often with the message, "House cleaning - paused". It was actually doing that less and less, the more I used it. And it did complete a few cleaning cycles without any errors.

But after the reset, this problem is now back.

Simson

He probably wants me to get out of bed and open the door so he can get out, when he comes up to me like this.

But he is very social. He is not afraid of anyone. He comes up to the nures and shows them the way to my door when they come :)

Somethinh happened to my neato just now aswell. It cleaned the entire  apartment. No problem. But when it needed to go back to the charger. It went crazy and wanted to go in then oppodite dirction. Same problem as before. *sigh*

It only got stuck once. Conviniently enough just near the couch where I am. Some spray bottle had fallen down on the floor and blocked its path. But now it is calling for help somewhere. But I am not leaving until Simson wants to :)

Marley's mellow mood

Now I'll try and relax with this strange random drink I bought.

My brother is going through the rules of the Battlestar Galactica game. So we might get to play that sometime also. Now I don't really feel like playing. But maybe I can force myself.

It still hurts in my tounge from grinding on the teeth. I hate that. I can't eat my apricot seeds. Because it just hurts. The tumour is taking up more and more space in my mouth so there's smaller room available for my tounge. And I have no painkiller for that. I used to have some sedative for the mouth. Maybe I can ask the doctor tommorrow about that.

I also have more it difficult to swallow liquids..because of the tumour growing back down my throat. Probably the left side of my throat doesn't work the way it should so sometimes when I drink I suck it into my lungs or something like that and just cough everything out. But I'll have to live with it and get used to it. It frightens me mostly that I notice differences from day to day.

I can't let things go. My ESD mat installation and the grounding installation in this house is so bad. And I just want a simple answer. Is my ESD mat installation good? Does it works as intented? Or it is completly dangerous as some people say.

Other people say, don't worry, you have a common ground for all your equipment. It is the way it should be.

While others say I need a good connection to earth ground, and my radiators should also be earth grounded. Otherwise it is useless.

My ground in my power strip is floating. It is no better than the wireless esd wriststrap. But there is no way I can install proper grounding in this whole house. I need to tear down walls and rewire the entire electrical system... would there be something that I can do locally near my workbench that would make it a safer and better place.

Some people say. The chassis if some equipment could get live and cause damage.. well how... if I was measuring with my ground pin to a live wire? Hmm...

I can't let the problems with my Neato just go. I have to investigate,  try over and over and over until I finally know what is wrong with it. I NEED to be alone when doing this. Because everything else just disturbs me. My guests want to play games.. I want to play games with them too. But it is so difficult when things doesn't work as intented. It will keep bugging my mind until I got a clear logical answer. Then I can leave it behind.

Maybe I'll need to build another robot, a babysitter robot for my Neato that pushed the resume button all the time.

...ew,  the marley drink was red and had a little smokey taste to it. But very very sweet. But it was drinkable. Maybe a taste of raspberry or something. Nah, not too bad. Just a little bit too sweet for my taste.

Neato XV Signature Pro - House Cleaning Paused

I noticed today that the robot stops at exactly the same place everytime it says "House cleaning - paused". Strange.

But I have never had the patience to wait and see if it starts automatically again. If it is for overheating problems or battery problems. I made a power cycle on it,  moved it back to the station. Then it said the batteries was too low. Is it a battery calibration error again?

I must know. I can't just leave it. I have to know what ia wrong. Or if there is nothing wrong. It is so important for me that I can't sleep at night if I don't fix it.

I will have to simulate the error again. And actually wait it out next time. And not loose my patience. I know that my old one stopped once and then started again for no particular reason.

What is the point of having an automatic vacuum cleaner if I cannot leave it alone at home alone. If it needs constant babysitting.

The first one I had ran fine up until now. So therefore I suspect overheating could be an issue in this new one. It is quite warm now in the summer.

It stopped once this second cleaning cycle. It found ita way back to the charger correctly. Something I didn't think about before is the radiator.

The radiators does not seem to be connected to mains ground. While, there is no mains ground in any of the outlets except the ones near the sink in the kitchen. The radiator piping is most probably connected down into earth. And from my understanding this is a good way to get a zero potential ground... But really, I have not much understanding about earth and grounding and RCDs... in my tiny electronics projects, ground can be anywhere you define it to be.

Neato XV Signature Pro - House Cleaning Paused

And... nope. Not kidding. It just stops like this with the message "House cleaning - paused". And this is my new one, the new I got as replacement.

I don't know what to do. I hate this.
I'm just gonna leave it this time. And see what happens.

I'm gonna google a little bit about the problem.

Edit:

No, I had no patience. I told it to return to the station. And it could not find it's way back. Not completely anyway. It was close :)

I've been thinking of getting my money back for this one and maybe getting the BotVac D85 instead. If possible.

Neato stuck on doorsteps

*sigh* I don't remember that first Neato had this many problems. Recent it got stuck three times on doorsteps with the message "clear my path". If I tilted a little bit the message disappeared and it started running again and when I released it, it displayed "clear my path"

I remember my old one getting stuck to with the message "clear my path" on door steps. But then I could just press start or resume and it would try and untangle itself from that position.

It also stops sometimes just sitting there saying house cleaning paused... for no particular reason.

And just now it has stopped again.. :/

These things irritates me, I really loved my first Neato that worked so well. Up until it got problems wirh it's "eye" or something.

Hmm. Now it seems like it's is out of battery. But shouldn't it go back to the charger in time? It is creeping slowly around on the floor, stopping and telling me to clear the path... maybe I should clean the sensors. I'll drain the battery again also and recharge it to clean later today or tomorrow.

Another day when it was cleaning. It went back to the charger do charge up to do the rest of the apartment. But it charged for like 5 hours or so.... I don't understand.

I love technology, and I was quite fond of my old Neato. I loved seeing it go round and round and getting out of all kinds of strange situations that it put itself into. It brought some joy into my otherwise quite grey and boring day.
But now when they both are acting strange and stupid and broken. I feel depressed over that.

Now later today at 13:40 I need to go to a doctor to talk about tracheotomy. I have had it before for a short while after the surgery.

When I think about that now. I feel so sad. It is like a part of my life is going to get removed. I wonder, will I be able to be home like this. Play guitar and games and tinnker with my electronics.
Most probably I will, be in the hospital for a short time untill the wounds have healed.
But wil I be able to eat, like I can now :/

I don't know. I am eating all the candies and chips ans dip and ice cream that I can afford now. Because suddenly I can't eat. And I am 100% stuck with this feeding tube. Oh, I am drifring away. I'll write another post.

Neato XV Signature Pro - House Cleaning Paused

So I got a new Neato robotic vacuum cleaner. And I don't know if it is OK or not. You can read about my old one in older posts.

I left in my old for repair, and just gave me this new one. It has been a little bit confused the first few times it cleaned my house. But I think that is normal. It didn't find back to the charger one or two times maybe.

But this strange thing has happened twice now. It just stops and says House Cleaning paused... But I wonder why.

I hope it is not an error, just something that is easy to fix.

But the thing is, the point of having a robotic vacuum cleaner is so that you can leave it at home while you're away. I don't want to babysit it constantly.

I remember my old one also stopping once for a while. But I didn't have time to check what it said on the screen. So I just left it there, and it started again after a while.

I'll try just to wait. And Google for some answers.

Edit: Not much answers on Google. And I didn't have the patience to just wait for it to start, so I just pressed resume *sigh*

Chips dip and candy and Galenskaparna & Aftershave

I feel very good right now. I need to take breaks from that Battlestar Galactica game. I'm not really used to play such complicated games. But I've heard it is good among players who do play games like that. I am currently playing 4 players alone just to figure out the rules. Hopefully it is much more fun with others :)

And I have always wanted to play a little bit more complicated games. But finding people that wants to play them with me is difficult. I am interested in the WoW board game.

But now I'll have candy, chips and dip and Galenskaparna & Aftershave on TV. One of my favorite swedish comedians. I feel no worries about my cancer. I just feel good. I love it when i feel like this.

I also had to fix the stupid dimmers that is installed in the this house. I had an old switch from a broken soldering station that I used.
The dimmers was some cheap crap. I never used my lights in the ceiling because of that. Lights were constanly flickering. I am quite certain that this is not a good installation. But I need to remove that flickering light. It is impossible to play baordgames under that flickering light.

I will probably buy real light switches tommorrow.... atleast I installed a fuse :) And I did get chocked once. But only in my fingertip.

I really  tried keep watching the anime I started yesterday this morning and not let anything interrupt me. But I still feel it is difficult to follow the plot completly.

The best animes I've seen are Golden Boy, Genshiken and Metropolis. Alot of animes are so "random", difficult to follow. I am not superhuge anime fan. I was into anime a lot when I was a teenager and Sailor Moon was on TV. I was HOOKED. I wanted more anime, but it was so difficult to find in Sweden. And if I could find one (VhS back in those days) they were so expensive. Up to 200 SEK for a VHS with one or two episodes. It was crazy.

Now the DVD"s that I bought was from 5 SEK to 10 SEK.

Neato problem again?

OK, so I did my first clean with my new Neato today. So the first thing that happens is that it cannot find its way back to the charger *sigh*

It also needed to charge more often. And I think it missed a few rooms. But I guess my first one was a little bit confused the first runs before it learnt how my apartment looks.

But I dont't remember that it couldn't find the charger the first time. Maybe it didn't... I've forgotten. Lets just see if it works better tomorrow.

Edit:

Nope, it seems to be OK. It is just a little confused the first few times until it learns how my apartment looks like. I just didn't remember my first one not finding back to the charger and keep going in the opposite direction and into walls like that the first time. It seems to be something that it does if "new battery" is pressed. Maybe it is pressed once as factory default. I don't know.

They gave me a new Neato XV Signature Pro

So, I never found out what was wrong with the old one. Not worth fixing maybe. Maybe it was sent back to the R&D to figure out what is wrong with it so they finally can make a new firmware to fix some bugs, who knows. :)

Anyway, now it is standing in the charger for a day. My first Neato I started only after a few hours, but it said in the manual to charge it for at least 12 hours.

I had some problem ripping off some sticky plastic in the dirt bin compartment. I hate it when some of the glue get stuck on the plastic. Almost impossible to remove. Some stuff disolve in oil and others in water. I guess this glue dissolves in oil so I used some oil to remove leftover glue. I just hope now I didn't do anything stupid now.

I also need to register this new one on Neato Robotics website also. I can do that later.

It was good that they gave me a completly new one. Because now I have some extra magnetic stripes and filters. That is good :) Hope this one will work.

I think I found the problem in my broken power supply

One blown circuit :)

Guessing from this picture, it is a TNY278 "Off-Line switcher"

And here is the other side :)

I was looking close to where the smoke on the inside of the chassis was, and there was the blown circuit. I wonder if this is the only broken component. All the capacitors looks fine. I wonder if maybe 600W was too weak for my computer. Also, it is summer now and a little bit more warm in the air.

Radiation therapy, new board games and fixing PC power supply.

Now an update since my previous post today, I am back from the hospital. Done my radiation therapy. After all irritation and frustration I felt this morning. I've dealt with all the things I needed to do. 

Turned in my Neato for repair, bought a new power supply for my computer. And picked up a package from the post office with some new board games I wanted. 4 new boardgames. 2 that I have played before that I really liked, and 2 new ones that I think looked like fun.

Battlestar Galactica that I have written about before is still standing set up and ready to be played. I got stuck on the first round, I didn't really know how the crisis procedure worked just from reading the manual. But then I looked at a tutorial video on youtube, and it looked quite simple.

As long as I can get my thoughts and worries about my cancer situation away. When I get that good feeling that everything is OK right now, I feel free and happy. I can easily get back that motivation to keep playing.

But now for the new games

I've played Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride before. But Power Grid and the one with the Swedish title "När då då?" looked like a game I might enjoy. I like nostalgia and, yeah, history and things.

Now I feel I need more painkillers, and I take 15mg anyway. It's difficult to keep my own 5mg promise. I really want to be sure that the pain is gone. And I'm just afraid 5mg wouldn't be enough. I feel so stressed up and angry. Now I just want to relax and fix my computer. And just hope that the new power supply will do it. Otherwise I need a new motherboard and everything *sigh*

They said that I shouldn’t get sick from the radiation. But I do feel a little sick anyway. I took medicine for that, Postafen. That will also make me a little bit tired so. It will hopefully make me feel more relaxed.

Now that my poor Neato is in for repair, it can take up to three weeks until I get it back. I need to vacuum my home manually again *sigh* ;P

16:40, New power supply installed

I have now installed the new and also quite fancy power supply, I bought a EVGA SuperNova 850 G2. I was looking around on the Swedish website prisjakt.nu. First I was going to buy a Cooler Master (don't remember the model), but it didn't have any comments or ratings on prisjakt. But the EVGA had lots of good comments and a high rating. They were both about the same price so I choose the EVGA and trust the positive reviews online.

After the installation, it looks messy and nice like this.

However, when opening the box I think it was a little bit too much "fancy luxury" for my taste, not that it matters much since I probably get the functionality I need and good quality anyway, and that is what is most important for me. The power supply came in a nice canvas bag. With an extra bag for cables.

I am the kind of person who would be happy to get a product with just some brown corrugated cardboard taped together, and no fancy colours or specially designed surface on the chassis. I think it is kind of silly. As long as the electronics is good quality, I'm happy.

But that is how it is on the PC market these days. PC gaming has become this big industry. And electronics need to look "fancy" and cool, with a window on the side of the computer chassis so you can see all the coloured contacts on the motherboard and coloured spinning leds on the fans. *facepalm* I don't care one bit about that.

Then I also made a mistake *facepalm*, when installing one of the SATA powercables, I pulled it too hard and the little plastic connector broke off. However the pins was not damaged, and the HDD works. It is an old HDD and the plastic has probably started to get brittle.

Worst of all, it is the HDD with the OS on it. But, it might give me a reason to finally upgrade my hard drive to an SSD for the OS. At some point.

And finally, an image of the old broken power supply. Now I am a little bit interested in finding out what the error is. The fuse seems to be OK. I've heard that the NTC thermistor is something that is the first thing you should check. Maybe I can write a post about that later if I get into troubleshooting this crap.
That dark spot on the inside of the chassis looks suspicious. It was only a 600W power supply, maybe it was too weak for my computer, *meh* I don't know.