Roomba 580 not returning to base on battery low

[Natalia]

I have read much of this forum including the pages about lighthouse placement and battery resets. Still, my new 580 does not return to base when working with lighthouses. Say, there are just two rooms with a door between them. It recognizes the lighthouse in the doorway, so it cleans the first room for 35 minutes, goes into the next room - and dies there after another ten-fifteen minutes of work.

Without the lighthouse it finds its way to the base fine, unless I let it run free in the whole four rooms apartment, then it dies in one of the distant rooms.

I guess the battery is not very good (I've asked the irobot support, and the new battery seems to be on its way), but in any case I thought it should go back and recharge when it feels the battery is low, so the lifetime should not really matter.

So my main question is, should it NOT go recharge from another room with a lighthouse in between and them resume the cleaning on its own?
And of course I would appreciate any advice on how to make it work.

[Guinan]

Hi, I have a new 570 that does the same thing. I too am waiting for a new battery from customer support, but like you I am concerned that this may not take care of the problem. The 570 and 580 are supposed to do four rooms on one charge. I am getting close to my 30 days so I hope the battery arrives soon. If the 570 isn't going to do what it is supposed to do then it is going to have to be returned. WAY too much money for it to not work right! I also have a 535 that arrived on Jan.1, 2009. The battery last much longer on the 535 and it finds it's way back to home base almost every time. I have pet gates everywhere so I had to get two robots. The 570 does half the house (or at least it is supposed to) and the 535 does the other half.

I have another post here somewhere talking about the problems with my 570 docking. I have tried one LH, two LH;s and no LH. Mine seems to do a little better using just one. At least it will dock about half the time when using one.

Please keep us posted as to your progress with your robot!

Cheers

[SE_machine]

Here's the link to Guinan's other thread. http://www.robotreviews.com/chat/viewto ... 789#p61789 I'm getting a new 570 sometime this week. Are there any problems with the 570 that I should know about other than the docking problem you seem to have? (i.e. Does it clean well? Is it noisy?) Thanks

[Guinan]

Hi SE_

I am always amazed at the amount of dirt the 570 picks up, especially since I run it every day. Other than the problems I have mentioned here, I love my robots! The area of the house that the 570 cleans is banned from all but one of my dogs. My four pound long coat Chiuhauhau does have free roam on this side of the house, but the others do not. My 570 (Betty) still manages to find an unbelievable amount of dirt and dust, every day. Noise level??? Well, yes, she is a little noisy, but I would say it is the same as the 535. I have no other Roomba's to compare it to. I think you will be very happy with your purchase.

Cheers

[esk3]

If you are using lighthouses and the battery gets low, the Roomba will try to get back to the base to charge. I find that it goes to the lighthouses, traverses them, and wall-follows in the room with the base until it picks up the signal. At this point the dock light starts to flash rapidly, whereas before it was flashing once or twice a second.

Anyway, it will not resume cleaning after it goes back to the base to charge. This is why long battery life is so important. I tend to get right around two hours on hardwood floors and about an hour and a half to two hours with carpet - depending on carpet hight/pile.

The issue with the docking, is probably exact placement. It all depends on the lighthouses. You've read the other posts about that, but know that I have found the "tractor" beam on the far side of the lighthouse (looking from the room with the base in it) is definitely the most useful to have free, if you can only have one. Also, try setting your lighthouse to 4-7 feet and move it somewhere where there is greater than 3.5 feet between it and the next wall. I have had similar issues with the LHs and found that when I put them somewhere - like a couple of feet on the far side of the doorways (again looking from the room with the base in it) the Roomba in general has an easier time with them, and finds its happy way home almost every time.

The issue with resuming is one of the most requested features for future generations of Roombas. It would be great if it could remember what room it was in and resume there when fully charged.

Roombas are still worth the money, you will be amazed at how clean everything is and how much it picks up. With the new CHM, the maintenance is not a problem, so everything's fine.

In a way, I'm glad that they don't resume when they are fully charged. Imagine this. You set it to clean at eight pm. It cleans until about 9:30 (about normal for an on carpet mission). It manages to return to the room and dock. It charges until about midnight or one in the morning. You (assuming that you go to bed early) are fast asleep when... Surprise! The roomba starts vacuuming and wakes you up. I would not be happy at all.


Anyway, my little rant aside, the LHs (and placement) should greatly (goes from about twenty percent to about 99 percent for me...) improve the chances of the Roomba returning to it's docking station. There are many posts on this site with suggestions on how to fix non-docking Roombas, if my suggestions don't help (although, there is a good chance that you've already read the other posts).

[Natalia]

Thanks Guinan and esk3 for great replies! This was very helpful to understand what was happening.

First I have to say that the new battery has arrived, and now it all works! So it was the faulty battery that was confusing the robot.

In between I tried placing the lighthouse in a few different ways, nothing really helped. By the way, one of the interesting ideas from this forum was that if the beam is set for a higher setting than necessary, it may reflect from the opposite wall and create some local disturbance. There seemed to be one spot near the lighthouse where Roomba seemed to get a little lost at times. After decreasing the beam length the problem disappeared. This was not a strict experiment though, so maybe it was just a coincidence.

Now I am considering buying a second base for the most distant room (I have two rooms and a lobby/hall in between, where the lighthouse is placed), as Roomba manages to get there and back to charging, but does not do a very good job cleaning that room. If I place a second base there, chances are Roomba will charge on that one, and when the next scheduled time comes it will start with that room first, giving it a better treatment. So in two cycles it will cover the whole house well.
A better battery would probably help too.

Anyway, it works! Here is Guinan's post on a similar issue. Good luck with resolving it as well!

-------------------

Also, I am thinking of removing the side brush, or downgrading it by cutting some one arms off. Because the arms get under carpets and stop Roomba from entering and cleaning them. Hope there will be some improvement with the sidebrush design in the future.
P.S. Oh, found the "fishing line mod"! Maybe this is the answer.
P.P.S. Removed three arms of the six-armed sidebrush, making it a three-armed one. Works much better when climbing carpets now!!!

[esk3]

Have you tried the second base yet?

I don't believe that it will work as the Roomba will ignore all base signals until it believes that it is in the room it started in, having traversed the required number of lighthouses.

I would not spend money on a base before borrowing another and testing it out.

[Natalia]

Yes, I have seen both opinions, some people say it does find the second base, some say it does not. I had nobody to borrow the second base from, so I got a new one.

So far you seem to be correct. I have three rooms in a chain, with lighthouses in between and bases in the first and the last rooms. It cleans the first room for half an hour, then the second, then enters the third. Then after a few minutes it leaves it, goes to the first room and parks there.

If it keeps behaving this way I will just manually start it sometimes in the distant room, so it will then do the opposite.

I still hope that maybe when the docking light turns on it will search for both the last lighthouse OR a base, so whatever it comes across first will be taken - sometimes it will be the base.

I would appreciate a comment from somebody who knows exactly how the 580 is programmed.

[esk3]

It won't search for the base because it always tries to return to the base it began on. I think the bases might have little ids transmitted by RF, like the LH/VWs do.

Starting it from both ends is a great idea.

[vic7767]

The 5XX home base does not have a unique signature that the Roomba registers like the Light House accessory. If the Roomba does leave a home base and does not traverse or register a Light House then when the proper battery level is reached it will dock on any home base it finds. If there has been a Light House traversed and has been registered then it will not dock on any home base other than one in the same room it left from.

[esk3]

Right, so if they are in different "rooms" then it will not dock, in the same room (as in, it has not left the first room) it docks on the one it finds first.

I was pretty sure that the base did not use RF because the Roomba never stops near it at the beginning like it does with the lighthouses. I thought it might explain the "room" issue after is has crossed, because there is almost no logical reason to prevent the Roomba from docking in another room (maybe with multiple Roombas, then you might want that... if the bases were compatible)

[Natalia]

vic7767, esk3, thanks

I just finished my last experiment, which of course confirms what you have said. Started the 580 from a base, let it clean the first room for half an hour, let it cross a lighthouse (the only one at the moment) to a second room where the second base was, and then placed stuff on the floor to prevent it from going back through the lighthouse to the first base. After another forty minutes or so the docking light came on, but it completely ignored the second base, although the second room is very small and it passed the base several times with the docking light on.

It is therefore confirmed, 580 ignores any bases on the other side of lighthouses. This is very inconvenient. If there were a hack or an upgrade, I would go for it right away!!!

[tysonzwicker]

I had similar issues with my Roomba dying in the kitchen, and not making it back to the living room docking station, despite having adequate battery life and 3 lighthouses to guide it. After quite a bit of experimentation i found a configuration that works 95% of the time (he still dies in the kitchen once in a month or so).

My advice (i'm no expert but i've experimented with my Roomba a lot):

Make sure you lighthouses are configured in such a way that the Roomba must pass through them all in a specific order, because when its battery is low, it will immediately seek to traverse past the lighthouse in the opposite order that it discovered them. Once its passes the last (first) lighthouse on its reverse trip, it stops looking for lighthouses and starts looking for its home base. It will totally ignore its home base until it has traversed the correct # of lighthouses, in the correct order. This often means you have to divide your floors into "zones" instead of dividing them by room. Also, the home-base needs to be on one side of the floor or the other- not centrally located between two zones.

This means you shouldn't ever give it a choice of two paths with two different light houses- this can result in it ignoring zones, or getting trapped/confused.

Lastly, if I'm not mistaken, the Rooma has a memory (I'm not sure how long) of its past mission(s). So, avoid changing the order of the lighthouses when you change the batteries. If you DO mess up the order, or can't remember which one goes where (as is the case with me every so often) then reset your Roomba before it's next run, so it can learn the NEW order of the lighthouses.

Hope some if this helps.

Oh ya, and watch for:

1. Mirrors/Shiny surfaces 0-10cm (0-3in.) off the ground- these bounce the lighthouse signals and create all manner of confusion. Use the smallest Range setting possible to prevent the signals from reflecting off anything, or being seen from to far away.
2. Try to locate the lighthouses so the face directly at another obstacle within its range (door ways are perfect for this). And make sure the lighthouses are aligned straight so they don't send the beam down the hall instead of at the other side of the door.
3. Keep the homebase at least a meter (3ft) from all lighthouses and out of the path of their beams. (they project beams at -30, 0 and +30 degrees, I think. Maybe its 45 deg. Anyone?), because multiple IR beams in one location confuse the little IR sensor on the top of the bumper.

Happy Experimenting!

[Fraggboy]

If I'm not mistaken, the Rooma has a memory (I'm not sure how long) of its past mission(s). So, avoid changing the order of the lighthouses when you change the batteries. If you DO mess up the order, or can't remember which one goes where (as is the case with me every so often) then reset your Roomba before it's next run, so it can learn the NEW order of the lighthouses.

Hope some if this helps.

You are partially correct (You don't need to reset the Roomba). You can change the LH's around after the Roomba is on the dock. Once the Roomba starts, it will adapt to the new changes.

If anyone wants to fully understand how the Roomba/LH's work together, please see this sticky. This thread fully explains how they communicate together, and how to properly place your LH's.