I’ve seen the past few days some significant charging problems mid-day. From looking at diagnostics it would appear that if the battery temp gets to 50 (which I assume is 50C) it just stops charging. This creates a few problems:
It won’t ever automatically resume the plan if this happens before the 80% threshold.
If you try to recharge then it just says failed charging. If this is temp related then it would be nice to have a different error.
Has anyone else seen this? I cannot find any info about the upper threshold of battery charging temps and when I asked support didn’t get an answer (since at the time it was charging they just closed the ticket). This has happened several times on upper 80s /low 90s days and that’s fairly common across the southern US during summer. Should I expect this just won’t charge and mow on those days?
The maximum operating temperature for the Yarbo battery is 45°C. If the battery temperature exceeds this limit, the system will trigger overheating protection, which stops the charging process to prevent damage.
We’re sorry that the current error message doesn’t clearly indicate that the issue is temperature-related. We’ve already forwarded this feedback to our product team for improvement.
Once the battery cools down below the threshold, charging should resume normally.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused and truly appreciate your patience and feedback.
Is there active cooling to help cool it down? On 90 degree days I have seen where it doesn’t until the sun goes down (prob byproduct of ambient + black enclosure + charging)? If so, where does it vent that I could make sure it’s clear.
This happened to me twice today, and the outdoor temp was below 90F. I manually resumed with a partial charge both times. I checked battery temp the second time and it was 51C. At a 45C cutoff there’s no hope of this machine working during summertime in the south! Has anyone had success placing a shade over the dock? This is bad.
Nightly temperature should fall down low enough so at least Yarbo can work in the morning.
I will look into providing shade for mine to protect it. My previous robot was an Automower that was docked under a deck and hence never needed any active cooling for its battery.
I tried to do the same for Yarbo but the deck was blocking the GPS signal, so I had to install the dock in the open.
@Yarbo-Forum do you have any plans to develop an official cover accessory?
A Support field engineer confirmed for me that 50 is a cutoff - might be that 45 is when it resumes, didn’t specifically say. I shared with them I’ve never seen it auto-resume before (seems to act like it’s just parked on the dock), but it could also be impatience on my part so will keep an eye out for it. If anyone else experiencing this sees it auto resume charging that’d be a good confirmation.
My unit requires about 3 charges (the first 100%, an 80%, and another 80% of which it doesn’t use all) to complete a 1.25 acre section and takes all day, so failure to charge will mean that can’t be completed in a 12 hour day and will end up across two days. Generally to mow about 3.5 of my 4 acre grassy areas is taking 4 days of runtime. I have let the unit run at night before but the grass does worse and I seem to have a lot more interruptions from vision and GPS too so try to avoid it.
Support suggested a fan blowing over it might help in those charging situations but there is no active cooling on the battery. I’m also debating whether to try to put something bright white (or perhaps 3D print a white battery cover if I can create a similar enough design) as a proof of concept. I think the black battery cover and need for the Yarbo to be in fairly open area (so almost certainly getting sun) doesn’t help and perhaps the white could put things off enough to help.
One of the reasons I bought one of those “LUCKYERMORE Dog Shade Shelter Canopy Medium Large Pet Tent Cooling Outdoor UV” doghouses was to keep direct sun off the core, as my docking station is in the sun – mostly in that sunny spot for wintertime with the snowblower to do whatever snow melt it can. I wonder if such a doghouse would help keep enough sun off the battery to keep it cool.
My Yarbo completed an 80% recharge today with the battery temp reaching 50C, so that must be the upper limit, not 45C. I like the idea of attaching something white over the battery compartment.
@Wes Re: the doghouse – Sometimes when I first go to the rover in the App, GPS will be red, but I think re-establishing GPS is part of the wake-up process, and it goes green in a few seconds. The rover starts Work Plans and seats itself on the pad to start charging OK. Yep, sometimes it whacks into the front legs of the doghouse on the way home there, but I think that’s navigation slop or some other GPS drift or whatever and has nothing to do with any GPS getting blocked by the doghouse.
It’s sitting under the doghouse now, and it’s been raining. GPS was green when I opened the App to talk to the rover. Unusually good number of L2 satellites for me, typical HeadingDop.
Well, today my Yarbo suspended charging at 74% with a battery temp of 52C in early afternoon with ambient temp of 92F and sunny. Later in the evening it suspended charging again at 56% with battery temp 52C while shaded and 89F outside. Looks like I’m going to need active battery cooling. Maybe a fan next to the dock with a proximity switch?
Does this type of unit handle rain so the battery compartment won’t take on water?
Have to also think about winter if considering mounting this permanently.
It’s almost like 3D printing a battery cover for this would make sense, then you just swap the original cover back in for the winter, providing the fan won’t succumb to rain and let water in.
