Errors after battery replacement

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eyespy
Posts: 27
Joined: December 3rd, 2021, 10:26 am

Errors after battery replacement

Post by eyespy »

Hi all,

First time posting in the community. I have an old Botvac Connected Wi-fi (no model number designation), whihc has about 750 cleaning hours on it. It had been running on the original battery, but recently was not able to finish the downstairs in three charges. After being inside for some surgery (main brush motor assembly replacement and 3D printed wheel drive gear replacement), I decided to go ahead and upgrade the battery.

Got official version from Amazon, replaced, and several minutes into the cleaning cycle the screen reads:

"Please contact customer support (8017)"

and the app reads:

"ui_error_battery_invalidsensor"

I've found posts about bad batteries and bad switches. I contacted customer service and they were not particularly helpful. They had difficulty identifying the model and generation of my unit, and seemed to be doing the same Google searches that I was doing.

I was able to hook up Toolio. When in error "BatteryFailure" is tripped, and "ThermistorPresent" is not tripped. Both of these are reversed when not in error. I can restart, do a soft reset, and it will generally make it through the next full cleaning cycle with one mid-cycle charge, but then fails again in the subsequent full cleaning cycle, so not very dependable.

I never had these problems prior to the battery swap, and the unit functioned without a problem for several full cleaning cycles following my other internal surgery prior to the swap, so I don't think it has anything to do with that.

Here are the detailed specifics:

Designation: Botvac Connected Wi-Fi
Part number: 905-0249
SW Ver: 2.2.0 build 296 (stock)
Battery part number: 205-0011 (the replacement part number matched original 14.4V stock Li-Ion battery)

I was hoping that this community might know of a way to tell the unit that the battery has been changed. That seemed to be what support wanted me to do, but this unit does not have a "new battery" function, or a support menu. Toolio says the battery has had 87636 cumulative cycles, but really it has had less than a dozen on this new battery. I'm not sure if that counter needs to be reset somehow.

Looking forward to making this unit dependable again!
eyespy
Posts: 27
Joined: December 3rd, 2021, 10:26 am

Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by eyespy »

Last update from support was that I did not need to worry about telling the unit that I had replaced the battery since it is an Li-Ion battery. I had hoped that someone had seen this before and knew a simple fix.

I guess I will running with the old battery again in order to verify that the problem seems battery-specific. If that is the case, I guess I will try replacing the battery again and see where that leaves me.
eyespy
Posts: 27
Joined: December 3rd, 2021, 10:26 am

Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by eyespy »

Old battery worked fine again for several cleaning cycles. Ordered another new battery. It had more errors than the first, including too cold, despite being 70+ F for a couple of days. It would also just go completely dead, drop power while rolling along. Pressing the clean button would turn it back on, and could be restarted on another clean cycle, only to do the same thing a few minutes later.

Truly at a loss, as is support. Old battery works fine. Two new batteries fail with many types of power sensor and power problems. Batteries are all genuine, have the same part number, some power rating, etc.
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vic7767
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Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by vic7767 »

You can suspect that a poor connection between the thermistor wires and the battery connections that are not making good contact with the battery leads. Your older battery still has good contact and may be due to a larger electrical connection that is established using the older battery pack.
eyespy
Posts: 27
Joined: December 3rd, 2021, 10:26 am

Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by eyespy »

Thanks vic7767! I did read about that in another post, and did try pulling out the individual contacts from the connector of one of the new batteries and squeezing each one a little with needlenose. I was able to get through a full cleaning cycle after that, but when it finished, it had the "open dust bin and turn switch to on" error.

It now gives that error if docked for charging. If I pull it away and do a soft reset, when it comes back up it thinks it has no battery power (maybe it doesn't due to bad connections) and promptly shuts off. Comes on when docked again with dust bin error.

Do you think I should try something as drastic as cutting the power leads and splicing on the old connector to a new battery, or is there a better way to fix contacts beyond needlenose tightening?
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vic7767
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Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by vic7767 »

Looks like the battery temp sensor issue has moved to the power leads and the thermistor leads are happy. The issue now is to solve the poor electrical contact on the red and black power leads.
eyespy
Posts: 27
Joined: December 3rd, 2021, 10:26 am

Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by eyespy »

I tried tightening them again. Now it it is completely dead. Won't come on with new or old batteries. Also will not power on while on the charger. Not sure what I did, but seems non-recoverable. Looks like I will be trying a new motherboard.

Out of curiosity, are the black wires the same? If you take all of the wires out of the connector at once, how do you tell which black goes back into which hole in the connector?
glnc222
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Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by glnc222 »

This might show the Botvac battery wires:
http://www.robotreviews.com/chat/viewto ... 78#p136478
with picture
Image
Positive(red) T1(yellow) T2(yellow) Negative (black)
T1 and T2 are connected to a temperature probe (thermistor)
on AMP micro-Mate'N'Lok connector (vs Molex on XV series).
Usually all black wires connect to system ground. Issue can be board trace sizes, gauge of wires for current load.

The newer WiFi Botvac's with lithium batteries have "smart" batteries with a serial interface to the cpu with maybe extra wires in the connector compared to the older NiMh battery Botvac's shown above.
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vic7767
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Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by vic7767 »

When one begins an adventure of troubleshooting your Neato, a picture is worth a thousand words.

May want to consider investing in a small multimeter to use when measuring voltages and continuity testing.
Attachments
Neato D3 tripack Lithium battery 14.4vdc
Neato D3 tripack Lithium battery 14.4vdc
eyespy
Posts: 27
Joined: December 3rd, 2021, 10:26 am

Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by eyespy »

vic7767 wrote:When one begins an adventure of troubleshooting your Neato, a picture is worth a thousand words.

May want to consider investing in a small multimeter to use when measuring voltages and continuity testing.
Haha yes. I like to tinker and hate to throw things away that still might have life. I have correctly wired batteries. I just was not sure which black wire went to which pin. There's no apparent order to how the wires come out of the wrapping and I was not yet ready to remove the wrapping of the battery.

I do have a multimeter.

I think I let the blue smoke out of my original motherboard, since I could no longer get it to do anything. I ordered a refurb unit online, and on the replacement, I can at least get power, but it just makes the LEDs bright, dim, flicker and then reboot. This process loops apparently forever. The screen never has output, but is connected. Not sure what this means. I found one post that said that everything had to be connected, but it looks like everything is connected.

It does not seem to get far enough for Toolio to connect, so I'm not sure if I'm now stuck with a sensor that isn't making good contact, or if this bright, dim, flicker, reboot cycle means something else entirely. Repairing these things definitely seems like a hobby, but I find it fun so far.
eyespy
Posts: 27
Joined: December 3rd, 2021, 10:26 am

Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by eyespy »

Can anyone confirm that this light sequence loop (bright, dim, short flicker, restart) with no LCD is the result of an sensor or peripheral not being detected?
glnc222
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Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by glnc222 »

Far as I know the ring light is purely for the charging function, for green ready to go, red extremely discharged, blinking orange or green as progress towards full. Failures in sensors have to be checked over USB with Neato Control for Windows or Neato Toolio for Android etc. or terminal emulator for text exchanges as well. Failure of USB indicates a system board defect unless there is a power supply problem. Analyzing these things often requires two units to swap parts for isolating defective components. A known good battery and power connections is needed to diagnose almost anything.
Neato Control will poll sensors continuously and show on screen so that pressing bumpers or waving hand in front of optical sensors is immediately seen. Current flow during charging can be monitored over time.
Whenever the battery is disconnected the unit performs a charging cycle to determine the state of an unknown battery installed, in case of capacity variation -- and the LCD menu item "New Battery" is used to indicate replacing, resetting internal models of aging with gradual capacity loss. The full state is detected by the termination of charging procedure which is by temperature with NiMh batteries and by voltage with lithium batteries. The system is not equipped to test a battery capacity by discharging it except by cleaning, compared to battery analyzer instruments which run discharge tests.
The quality of a battery cannot be determined just from the voltage on it but has to be measured with a load and observing time to discharge. A large drop just attaching a load is indicative of lost capacity -- there is a voltage discharge curve of falling voltage over the course of discharging. 12v auto lamps or high power resistors can be used for DIY testing.
Does this unit have NiMh or lithium batteries?
Neato's lithium batteries have a "smart" feature where a power management IC was moved from inside the robot into inside the battery pack, with a serial data interface to the robot with info on charge state, temperature and even serial number of the pack -- causing some problems when replacing -- they are blocking third party aftermarket immitations.
eyespy
Posts: 27
Joined: December 3rd, 2021, 10:26 am

Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by eyespy »

Thanks for that. It's a lithium battery. I have three - the original from the unit, and two seemingly identical replacements. This Botvac Connected does not have red and green rings. All the LEDs are white. There are two surrounding a spot clean button, and two surrounding a whole home clean button.

Those are the lights that are continually going through the bright, dim, flicker, reset cycle. I hesitate to leave it charging like this, knowing that there is some sort of fault.

It never reaches a point where Toolio will connect. The suspected reboot happens prior to that. There is no LCD activity, hence no readout there.

I was hoping that someone could point to a precheck that is failing. I have two boards and three batteries, but nothing is working right now.
eyespy
Posts: 27
Joined: December 3rd, 2021, 10:26 am

Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by eyespy »

FWIW, the LED sequence is actually bright (10s), dim (4s), off (1s), dim (1s), flicker/off/reboot. This loops continuously with no sound and no screen. What does it mean?
glnc222
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Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by glnc222 »

I would think the only function of lights around a function select button, spot clean etc., is to indicate that function was selected -- so it would normally be only on or off -- check the manual for any description.
The main clean button is usually the one with a charging indicator -- check the manual.
Erratic behavior of such indicators can result from unstable power supply circuits; on the dock power should come from the dock, not the battery. It could also result from a system board defect where the control of those indicators is defective, possibly in the cpu. The board would have to be replaced in order to tell -- what repair shops do, with lots of spares. There is no functional relation between such indicators and sensors.
eyespy
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Joined: December 3rd, 2021, 10:26 am

Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by eyespy »

Thanks. That's what I needed to know. I got my second "refurb" board. This one came with the board side battery connector ripped off and the battery pins bent. It had the same light sequence, only it got about 500ms further into it - enough to power about half of the power-on tone before dying.

Now I'm looking for a reputable supplier of refurb boards.
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vic7767
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Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by vic7767 »

A good ebay seller for Neato is "Casino187".
eyespy
Posts: 27
Joined: December 3rd, 2021, 10:26 am

Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by eyespy »

Thanks. I tried a board from casino187 and had the same thing. He is a very reputable seller, so I must just be missing something.

Can anyone confirm that the bare board connected only to the battery should power on an be accessible via Toolio? glnc222 above indicated that there is no functional relationship between the boot up lights and the sensors.

I'm wondering if I have a fault in a sensor or some other wiring fault. The symptom is exactly the same with the three bare boards that I've tried connected only to the battery or fully installed.

The original board that I was replacing had a different symptom (completely dead, no power, no lights).
eyespy
Posts: 27
Joined: December 3rd, 2021, 10:26 am

Re: Errors after battery replacement

Post by eyespy »

Just to close the book on this:

I ended up getting another working unit. The board that I received from casion187 was good.

Part #905-0249 is also known as a D02, but is labeled only as "Botvac Connected" with no D designation. Turns out that following my original battery replacement I probably caused at least two more problems by shorting out the board and oddly the LCD screen.

Once I got the new unit, I was able to trial and error the parts until I found that with casino's board installed in the old unit, with the new screen, everything worked fine.

A couple other things to note:

When the screen is not detected a board which is otherwise working will give the lighting sequence that I mentioned above. If you are getting that, you might just try a screen replacement. They are only about $10-12 now.

Also, I still had some connection problems with a new battery on an old board. Evidently the receptables for the pins on the connector side are a little wider that the old batteries. I was able to disassemble an old battery, remove the connector and splice it onto a new battery. I've attached a picture of what the inside looks like when you take the black wrapper off the battery. It is actually 8x red 18650 batteries, and a circuit board.

The connector wires are soldered into the circuit board, and my suspicions are correct in that there is no obvious way to tell the black wires apart by just looking at them. You can cut a small flap in the center of the black battery wrap to expose the circuit board access panel to figure it out, and then tape back up when you are done.

Even on a deadish vacuum battery, the 18650 batteries can be recharged in an 18650 charger and reused in other devices that take them. I did that very thing with some flashlights. Theoretically if you had a tiny spot welder, you could probably build your own replacement with 18650s, but I'm not sure what info the battery circuit board holds.

Anyway, in the meantime I purchased a D5. I like the no go lines, but the absence of a screen is noticeable. Now I have the D5 and two working D02s.

If you think you might have one of these Botvac Connected (D02) units, and are curious about repairing it, let me know and I can try to help. I've got quite a bit of experience with them now.
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