When the Yarbo went to mow this morning, it had a “right drive blocked” message while it was sitting on the charging dock. This was after it had successfully mowed and parked itself the previous mow. I powered it down for 10 minutes and when it came back up, it displayed the same message, as well as a “right drive motor overtemp” error.
I powered it down and dragged it into the garage. I took the deck off, the battery out, and put a fan on it to cool down. The whole unit was in the sun, so it was warm to the touch.
After three hours, I reassembled it and powered it up. The main board immediately started smoking and I could see one component on the board burning up.
I powered it down. Just to see what would happen, I restarted it. It did boot but with a “battery communication lost” message. It’s now powered down and a service ticket has been created. Service ticket 225095.
It’s too bad. We haven’t really had any issues with the unit until now.
Horizontal mounted power board? Did you apply sealant on it provided by Yarbo? Does it have a white or black coating on the part that was smoking? Clear sealant means the recall was never done. Just wondering what your units condition was of the power board
This unit was received last June. It has a vertical circuit board. It was ordered as a Pro mower, so it hasn’t been in service that long. I don’t think it was subject to the coating issue. If it was, I never got any sealant to apply.
The area on the board that burned is right above two blue colored caps. I’m guessing the right drive motor locked up and was drawing full current. There must not be any fuses in the circuit. I’m not sure what else I would have done differently as far as troubleshooting the right motor issue. I think the common suggestion is “reboot” and see if the error comes back. The odd thing to me is that the unit had no problems completing the mow and parking on the charger a few days ago. No errors, nothing unusual.
I have already gotten a first level CS response and sent them the same pictures. We’ll see what tech support says once they review.
Interesting. That’s the new(er) power board version. The original version was horizontally mounted.
Your theory about the motor locking up makes sense to me. But it also calls into question the longevity of the power board if there is ever an overcurrent event, which is probably somewhat likely to happen at some point.
I’m really sorry to hear about this issue, especially after your Yarbo had been working normally until now. I understand how concerning it must have been to see the main board start smoking.
I’ve followed up on your ticket #225095 and will make sure our team reviews it carefully. We will investigate the root cause of the smoke issue and the related drive motor errors to better understand what happened and provide the proper solution.
Thank you for sharing the detailed information and the steps you’ve already taken. It will help our team with the investigation. We’ll keep you updated through the ticket once we have more findings.
Just to keep everyone up to date, the unit that was supposed to arrive by 7/31, which was 5-7 business days after Yarbo confirmed that they would send a unit, is now not shipping until 7/31.
It’s disappointing that the company can’t provide accurate shipping data. I would rather get accurate information, so I know how to plan for alternate mowing arrangements and arrival of large boxes to move.
Hi there, I’m sorry for the delay and any inconvenience caused by the delivery timeline.
I’ve checked the logistics status of your replacement, and it shows that the unit was shipped out on July 28th.
We understand that having accurate delivery information is important for your planning, and we truly appreciate your patience while the replacement is on its way. Please feel free to reach out if you have any further questions.
The unit did arrive on July 30. We were flying out on the 31st, so I had enough time to swap parts and power it up. When I reloaded the map from the cloud, it looked like an older version. Everything came up normally and it was able to get oriented on the charging station. I then brought it back to the garage and shut it down while we were gone.
We are back from the trip so I powered it back up. I confirmed that the map was older and that there wasn’t a newer version in the cloud. I did end up remapping the lawn but I wanted to make some changes anyway so that isn’t the end of the earth.
I’m not sure if the older map version is something that I did incorrectly in settings, or if it’s a bug. I thought it was supposed to automatically update the cloud version with any changes?
Either way, the rest of the swap was pretty straightforward. I manually saved the new map to the cloud. The new core, christened “Sinister “ is out catching up with the mowing.
It only pushes to the cloud when you hit save manually. So if you have a map you’re happy with, go into previous maps and hit save and you will have a local copy and one pushed to the cloud.
