Hi. We had a cold streak here where the temp got down to at least -18C and it’s been below 0C continuously. Perfect for charging batteries!
When I opened the app to send Yarbie out for a run, I noticed he was sitting at 76% battery level. No problem, he’s got work to do so I sent him out on some small jobs. Then I sent him out on a big job. He notified me that his battery was low and would need to return to the docking station for a re-charge. After about an hour, I checked d the app. He was down to 17% and then I noticed his number was lit as “RED” not “GREEN”. Hmmm.
It looked like he was sitting on the charge pad normally. His charge pad cord was lit up BLUE. Power? - check. I lifted his head and drove him off the charging pad. I manually cleared it of all snow. I then backed him back onto the pad. Clean charging station? - check.
He still didn’t start to drink the power. So I pressed the “recharge” button on the app controller. He pulled out, turned around and blew off the charge pad as normal. He spun around and backed onto the pad again. Exactly between the dotted lines … a perfect mount. Still no charge.
I thought I better get him juiced up a little since it was still pretty chilly. So I plugged him into the manual charge port. That caused the charge symbol to go GREEN. 15% and charging. So I left him there and checked back in about 30 minutes. 16%. Hmmm. That’s slow. Maybe slow until it gets to 20%? So I waited and checked a couple of hours later. 19%. Hmmm. Overnight the battery climbed to 64% with the charge cable. That seems slow? I have attached a diagnostic screen cap. The battery temp has varied from 2 to 6 at various times of me looking at the diagnostics page.
Any suggestions? I have pressed the power button for about 10 seconds and the system shut down. I then pressed it again for about 2 seconds and it seemed to have re-booted. I could pull the battery.
Perhaps this is unrelated, but my map was erased from the app on my phone and I had to restore it from the cloud. I assumed it was an update to the app that hosed the map. But now that I’m typing this and the other funny business …
I started this on Dec 7 in the morning. I’m posting on Dec 8.
I have attached a current diagnostic report screen cap:
This may be a known issue with the BMS needing to be reset. Unplug the battery for 4 hours and then plug it back in and see if it charges normally.
The map sometimes takes a while to load when you open the app. Force closing the app and reopening it can speed this up. It shouldn’t lose the map, it’s stored on the core, not your phone. Since you restored, make sure to check all areas, pathways, etc for settings. They will all be defaulted. Same with schedules and work plans.
I have the same issue I plugged Yarbo manually last night, the battery reached to 64% this morning and it was very slow charging when I plugged it manually. I just unplugged it and will wait until I come back from work tonight and plug it again and see.
Ahh. Sorry about that Chief.
I found the issue. In my testing for governing the use of expensive electricity vs less expensive electricity, I had toyed with the Work Preferences feature of “No Charge Period”. I was playing with it because our TOU rates change between Weekdays and Weekends and I was looking to see if the app feature could handle the nuance of a calendar for it to be useful. It did not, but I inadvertently left it active!
So my charging issue is completely related to that feature. When I found the issue and turned it off, Yarbie immediately displayed in the app: “Battery Heating”. D’oh.
So … the app may need a new symbol for the charging icon that shows a “Lock” (or something) to show souls like me that there are settings in place that are inhibiting the charging process.
Again, sorry about that Chief.
All good. At least you figured it out. I agree that something indicating that feature is active is needed.
The wired charger only offers about 90W. The induction charger emits something closer to 600W. The wired charger could take all day at optimal temps to get the charge from 15% to 100% completed. If it is using power to warm the battery pack so that it can charge the pack, I would imagine the charge time would be substantially extended into the future at well below freezing temperatures.
Glad to hear it was a nice and easy solve! And yeah, Yarbo should have a more descriptive set of icons to indicate exactly what is happening with the battery.
I mean just the fact that the app ALWAYS says the battery is “charging” is misleading. When the battery is at 100%, why not do what everyone else does, and say the battery is full?
Thank you for letting me know. I did not know there was so much difference in W between the wired charger and the induction charger. I need to check the spec. but because I keep Yarbo in the garage when it is not snowing, I had plugged it manually, but next time I will make sure to use the induction pad. The two times it rechanged itself on the docking station. I noticed it was faster charging.
Glad to see you’ve identified the root cause, and thank you for your suggestion about adding a reminder for the no-charge period.
Wow. Again, thank you for letting me know on this feature “No Charge Period”. I did not know. However, my issue I think was the BMS. I unplugged it for over 6 hours and replugged it back in manually. It was charging slowly, but it did charge over night to 100%, so it is good to know that feature for the future and how to avoid it.
