Asking this question in case others have had the same problem. Sometimes when my Yarbo returns to the charging pad, it has trouble aligning with the pad. Sometimes it aligns with no problem. When I observe it trying to align, there are times when it looks perfectly aligned on the pad and I think it’s good, it tries to realign and when readjusting it gets out of alignment. And at that point it starts the whole process of realigning and eventually gives up. I then have to manually align it.
So my question is: what is the core aligning with? Does it check if it makes a charging connection or is it going from GPS coordinates? Because watching it I can seek it is perfectly aligned to my eyes, yet it will start over the alignment process. In other cases it aligns itself fine without me needing to intervene.
I also think slippage is a factor. It seems like the charging pad doesn’t provide the traction needed. Has anyone added anti slip traction tape to the charging pad to help it align?
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It uses GPS to get to the pad, back on, then uses magnetic sensors to align. It checks GPS periodically. If you’re having problems with it aligning properly, you could try a reinstall of the docking station to see if that helps. I wouldn’t add anything to the dock. I would just clean it. Adding more traction can throw the algorithms off.
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I actually have this problem as well.
I notice after the yarbo stops on the pad. it “rolls forward” I know this isnt the yarbo just driving forward as it happens when the emergency stop on, or the unit powered off as well.
That being said, the emergency stop or powered off states im not really worried about.
But I have been wondering if the Yarbo is capable of “breaking”
Typically for electric motors to “Break” you simply tie the motor leads together electrically and and the current caused by the motor trying to spin applies a breaking force.. which is pretty sweet.
I know the yarbo can do: Forwards, reverse, Idle ( leads floating ), and I do suspect breaking as well since slow and fast driving modes have different behaviours when releasing the control input. Fast kinda “glides” forward, while slow comes to more of a hard / immediate stop.
If the core is capable of “Breaking” it should be rather simple to say. “Hey we are charging on the pad. Enable break so we dont roll”
If your dock is on a flat and level surface there should be minimal to no roll forward. I’m not sure I’d want a constant voltage applied to the motors for braking while it is docked. It spends most of its life doing that for a lot of people. Can’t imagine that would be good for the motors long term. I would recommend submitting a ticket if you are having docking issues and rolling forward. Especially if your dock is sitting on a level surface. If it is just from the rolling forward, you can slightly incline the front of the dock a tiny bit. +/- 1 degree is acceptable per the installation guidelines. However, I’ve heard from another PPP user that in that direction, it can handle more slope.
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Beauty about the breaking.
it takes 0 voltage.
its just electrically tieing the two motor leads together.
You can test this yourself as well, if you have any standard dc motor. try spinning the shaft with the leads “floating” and then try again once you use a piece of wire and connect the two leads.
once connected the motor will resist spinning. Rather quite neat.
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