Thanks for providing such a detailed description of the charging issue and the steps you’ve taken to troubleshoot it. I’ve added all of this information to your support ticket so our team can have a clearer understanding of the situation and investigate further.
Our FSE team is reviewing your case and will follow up with you soon with further guidance and assistance regarding the charging issue.
We really appreciate your patience and your help in providing these details, which will assist us in identifying the root cause more efficiently.
Cautiously happy to report that when I awoke this morning my Yarbo was dutifully executing its work plan and then successfully returned to the docking station and is currently charging normally.
I have absolutely no idea why the difference, perhaps the FSE team has made some tweak remotely. But, again it’s working
Thanks for the suggestion Cobradunn. The diagnostics in the RTKs seems pretty good consistently. Still was/am prepared to try anything, however so far today all is working.
The power board issue error has re-appeared. At 3:33PM US Eastern time today the core returned to the base to charge. I noticed that it was not charging and the power board issue error message was displayed, so I turned log recording on for a minute.
Then, I turned recording off, then restarted the Yarbo system. Once it finished restarting I saw that the power board issue message was still present, so I turned log recording on again, drove the core off of the dock, and then instructed it to automatically re-dock and recharge.
The dock light was blue, but when the core re-docked the dock light turned green and successfully started charging, however the power board issue error message remains.
I’ve updated my ticket with the same information and am awaiting next steps.
I was hoping this was the case as well, but in the time since my last message it has stopped charging again and the battery was draining further below the 20%. The dock lock was still blue (vs red) so I manually drove it off the dock again, and told it to recharge again. It was successful, and is once again recharging, but I fear something is amiss.
Everything is factory new over the last couple of months. (except of the little nintendo controller, but I’ve never used that). I’m on battery #3, lawn mower #3, SAM #2, Core #8 (9 if you include the one that was DOA), dock #3, DC #3. They have been great about trying to get things working… but I’m still struggling to have sustained success.
Another update… shortly after the last update the core stopped charging again. This time taking it off the dock and putting it back on failed to initiate a charge. The battery will be fully depleted before morning so my intent is to plug it into the wired charger.
Have you tested your home electrical, specifically the outlets involved in charging (wired and wireless)? Wondering if you have noisy or bad voltages or surges that could be affecting this much equipment.
That’s a totally logical question to ask, and one that I’ve actually considered.
The reality is that my electrical system is highly monitored and protected due to my paranoia and computer use. The whole house is on line conditioners and back-up batteries, then certain circuits (including the one that the data center, and those that have network devices) have additional UPS and line filters and automatic voltage regulators one them. Additionally I have two overall voltage monitors with logging and alerts if the voltage goes out of a specified range.
Anything is possible I suppose, but I would put those at the lower end of the probability range.
Anecdotally, and unscientifically, I “feel” that problems seem to occur more when the Yarbo is being tasked harder and longer, and when its gets hotter. It could totally just be that I’m more uncomfortable and less patient.
I also know that I’m not the only person using Yarbo in Florida, but the conditions do seem pretty extreme. In addition to the heat and humidity, heavy rains and electrical storms causing atmospheric disruptions, we also have incredibly aggressive Brazilian Fire Ants that absolutely love to infest anything with an electrical current running through it. I haven’t witnessed them in the Yarbo, and I assume that has been taken into account from an engineering perspective, but it does occur to me. I’ve put a ring of vasoline around the power cord of my EVs when activity is high because the love to crawl up the power cord and crawl right into the power socket. Strangest thing. They also used to foul my shore station on my dock as well.
In any event, thanks for the question, but in this case, I’m pretty sure that isn’t it.
So I just walked outside to plug it into the wire charger assuming the battery was totally dead by now and miraculously it was charging again. Does anyone know if the docking station itself has known temperature limitations? It’s been uncomfortably hot here and I have been working the system pretty hard. But now it’s sat for the last couple of hours and the sun has gone down and it’s magically working again.
Red can indicate environmental, so anything is possible. I know of users in the Caribbean, Hawaii, New Mexico, Louisiana, Georgia, and Florida and while they have complained of throttling when charging, nothing like what you are experiencing. As for the AC power, sounds well covered. But maybe throw a multimeter on the plugs to be certain. If you can check the frequencies, maybe worth looking at it just to be sure. At least you can check that box. Although it sounds well checked.
We’ve been running mid 90s. Another heat advisory today. My home backup power auto notifies me that it goes to maximum storage in case of grid failure on days like this.
I’m beginning to understand all the folks that go north in the summer.
Did another battery reset (unplugged for four hours) and error messages had cleared when I restarted the Yarbo. It has been running for over 10 hours so far with no new issues.
Although I’ve been providing regular updates to my support ticket, I have not heard anything back from support for several days.
After a few days without the power board issue, warning showing, it has returned.
Also, the Yarbo stopped randomly a couple of times today and the app said, paused by user even though I had not. Fortunately, It did resume successfully.
It also still seems to be having trouble charging randomly. I can sometimes resume charging by manually driving the core off of the charging dock, and then telling it to charge again.
However, this time it appears the dock light is red again. So I’m going to unplug the dock for a while and see if that resets it like it did previously. The only environmental thing I can think of is our extreme heat continues and maybe it’s more than the unit can handle under the constant load. I do need to have my Yarbo running pretty much 24 x 7 to keep up with the growth.
