Betsie Lawnbott

As I wrote previously, I was planning to redo Betsie’s front yard wire. Strangely enough though, when I started her up for the first mow of the spring, the wire was connecting perfectly and I didn’t have to fiddle with anything at all. I was quite surprised.

After getting the grass short I planted some grass seed that the previous owners of the house had left in the shed. I just tossed it around by hand on the bare spots under the trees (it was a shade grass mix). It had been dated spring 07, but I figured I might as well try it since it was left behind. It has been growing well since then.

Of course the wire around the side yard was broken, and then something disconnected on the main loop too. I placed an order for wire. It hadn’t come by the next weekend so I looked up the tracking number.

“Delivered”

???

“Pasadena, Maryland”

Oh no. That was Betsie’s first home. 3 hours away and who knows who lives there now! I had changed all the addresses when I checked out, and my email confirmation from the company had only the right address on it. I contacted them and complained. I told them they could just refund my money. I ordered from McMaster Carr and had the wire the next day.

My next free evening I installed it. Wow, no wonder I had had so many problems with the wire. In less than 500 feet I had at least 8 different pieces. Now it was all one piece all the way around. I got to visit with my neighbors who came out of hibernation to chat for the first time since fall.

I connected the new wire to the stranded pig tails and went to check the connection. The light on the transmitter that is either solid green or blinking green wasn’t either. It wasn’t even lit.

Betsie wasn’t charged.

Something had gone wrong in the week and a half of waiting for the misdirected wire.

At first I suspected the transmitter, but after measuring the voltage across charger I realized that was the likely culprit, only 5 volts instead of 25.

I checked all the fuses, cleaned off some dirt, and it worked again!

For about 5 minutes.

Now the lights on the charger were out too.

This is why Bamabots was having new parts sent to me. What’s happen since then? Well, I got a new transmitter, but they didn’t send a new charger. I’m still waiting.

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It is strange having a blog that you know people read. My livejournal, which I’ve had since 1999, has never had many followers, so I just talk to myself and feel free to complain about things. It’s actually been “friends only” since I discovered a co-worker reading it a few years ago, I didn’t want to have to worry about what I might have said about my job being too public.

Betsie’s blog, this blog, started because I wanted to tell people about my cool new creature. I talked about her in so many emails and IMs that my friends got tired of hearing about “Betsie this, Betsie that” all the time. So I set up a livejournal account for Betsie and sent emails to that instead.

It was a surprise when people started commenting, and a huge surprise to be contacted by the lanwbott company (KA) because of this blog. Subject matter blogging was just starting to really catch fire at the time, so I guess we fit right in.

Now days I don’t write quite so much. CBS Sunday Morning never did do their story with my interview and Betsie. I know that that happens with TV, but they did act like it would definitely air last summer. My neighbors are still asking me about it.

They are also asking me why Betsie hasn’t been out much this spring. Is that the new polite way of point out how tall the grass is in your lawn? That’s another entry though.

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Still no package with new power adapter. I guess my last post jinxed it… or maybe it went the way of my original wire shipment… to the last place I lived in Maryland. Hope not.

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Last week, Thursday I think, I put down brand new wire in the front yard. After taking out the old wire my reason for doing this became even more clear. The old wire was made up of various lengths twisted together. I used about 400 feet for the new wire, yet the old wire was at least 8 different pieces! This is what happens when you move an installation from one house to another (or if you have a landlord who likes to break your wire).

As I finished I went to check on the signal and connection with the terminals. That’s funny, no light on the transmitter (little box) at all? Weird. So much for testing the new wire. Betsie’s battery was also drained all the way.

I emailed the folks at Bamabots. I measured a voltage of only about 6 V coming through the charging station. That would be a problem, it should be 27 or so volts. After checking that all the fuses were okay, cleaning some dirt away from one fuse inside the transformer (big box) I tried it again and it worked fine! Wow. I guess it was just dirt.

I left Betsie to charge and I emailed Bamabots to tell them of my success. I came back and it wasn’t working again. This time none of the lights were on on either the transmitter or the transformer. Spoke too soon. I emailed them again.

Well that was Friday, I emailed today to ask if they could just send a new transformer out to me because the rain has stopped and the grass is about to grow a foot!

I got a reply back really quick…

Hi Sara!

A new transmitter and charger are already on their way. They should have went out yesterday from Atlanta.

Kerry

Now that’s service, yes? I had to respond ‘Thanks for letting me know! ;)’ Maybe it’ll come today!

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I am thinking about re-wiring the yard with new wire for this season. The wire I have always seems to have breaks in it that I can’t find easily. This is mostly because I used it at another house before moving here. Now that I’m not planning on moving again ANY time soon, it would be nice to have a more reliable perimeter. I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to get Betsie out there mowing immediately so she wouldn’t chop the wire up, plus I think I would just bury it from the start.

Last time I bought wire from Del City and I think I opted for THHN 14 gauge solid/single strand. It has worked pretty well except for connecting to the charging house terminals, I had to do that with the Lawnbott supplied stranded wire to get it to keep a signal loop. The little springs that held the terminal clips in are long gone too. I usually have it covered with tape.

Anyone have advice for where to get more wire from or what to do about the terminals?

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I am thinking about re-wiring the yard with new wire for this season. The wire I have always seems to have breaks in it that I can’t find easily. This is mostly because I used it at another house before moving here. Now that I’m not planning on moving again ANY time soon, it would be nice to have a more reliable perimeter. I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to get Betsie out there mowing immediately so she wouldn’t chop the wire up, plus I think I would just bury it from the start.

Last time I bought wire from Del City and I think I opted for THHN 14 gauge solid/single strand. It has worked pretty well except for connecting to the charging house terminals, I had to do that with the Lawnbott supplied stranded wire to get it to keep a signal loop. The little springs that held the terminal clips in are long gone too. I usually have it covered with tape.

Anyone have advice for where to get more wire from or what to do about the terminals?

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I need to take a picture of the circle of yellow grass in the front yard. I didn’t notice it until a few weeks ago. It looks like a lawnbott pattern, and very well could be.

I sent Betsie out to mulch leaves and after a short time realized her blade was set very low. This resulted in her cutting up the already dying grass (we had a drought this summer) lower than the other grass had been.

I can’t wait for spring and things to turn green again! Winter without snow is just not very pretty.

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We got home on Saturday night and pulling into the driveway we saw Betsie in a spot she really shouldn’t have been able to get to. Stuck right up by the garage door munching on some weeds. I have no clue how she got there, and I have had her on house arrest since then because I haven’t had time to watch her closely yet. She was still powered on (display said ‘BLOCKED’) so it doesn’t seem likely anyone picked her up, she would have turned off as they carried her.

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I downloaded the internet update software yesterday onto my work computer. Thankfully it wasn’t complex enough to need one to be a windows administrator to install it. They include a nice list of all the updates. Poor Betsie was still using software from 2005!

I got home and opened her all up on the porch. Lots of dust, but very clean inside considering! Now she really felt more like a robot to me. All the cards and wires. The Serial port was at the lower right side and needed a 9 pin male plug.

I went to Staples (they’re the closest big box store to my house) and found a M/F DB9 Serial. Very common. Driving home it started pouring! No worries, I already had Betsie up on the front porch waiting for me.

The cable was designed as an extension cable, so I had to remove the annoying metal nuts to get it to fit. I ended up taking the whole shield off and leaving just the pins, but it worked!

I set up my work laptop (my personal laptop is a MacBook and doesn’t have a serial port) in the house foyer and ran the cable out the door to Betsie.

I didn’t get a connection. I tried all the ports and none worked.

I opened the Report program and it told me to have the robot turned on and in Pause mode. So I decided to try that.

Won’t turn on. Ooops, I had grabbed Betsie right from the yard where she had gotten stuck or something and shut down. She needed to be taken over to the house to restart. I checked the rain and decided it was light enough to try it. We only got a little bit wet.

Back to the porch and plugged the cable in again. The rain started back up and the lightning flashing and thunder crashing made me feel all Mad Scientisty! This time, with Betsie on Pause, the software connected perfectly. She’s now running June 28, 2007. It Worked! It’s Alive!!

I put her all back together and tried to get her started but got the Sync and No Signal error, so the rain must have messed with the wire. But even the error is better than before. It used to sit on Sync for a lot longer.

Today we’ll give it a try with the new programming.

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So, I need to find a serial cable, because apparently there have been multiple software updates for the Lawnbott Evolution. Betsie is behind the fashions! Oh no!

The best discussion of the update has been here at the Bamabot’s forums. They also have free cables when you purchase $50 from them.

I will let you know how it goes.

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