Hey all-
I recently disassembled my XV 14 to clear a brush jam. It turned out that one of the screws holding the motor in had come loose and was jammed up in the gear/belt. I was also able to clear a bunch of hair out of it as well (design flaw, imo).
Put it back together, and while it still runs, it cleans inconsistently. One day it might do half my downstairs, the next it might just do six square feet.
I’m very technical and mechanically inclined as my career for 15+ years is IT, I do all of my own auto repairs and home upgrades and I used several step by step guides online to make triple sure that I did it properly. I also used a piece of paper and taped screws from each step to the paper, then reassembled by reversing the order of steps. The bumper flippers were all properly aligned as well when I put it back together so there are no bumper issues. It still seems to ‘see’ just fine via ladar as it doesn’t run in to anything that’s within it’s line of sight.
I’ve updated the bios, but it didn’t really do much, although it did seem to increase the area the bot vacs.
One other thing- this vac has been running for less than a year. It’s a brand new replacement I got from Neato for my old XV 14 when it bit the dust.
Any ideas? I love this guy but really don’t want to shell out another $300.
Thanks.
Hi Xerobull,
We can certainly try and help you to resolve this problem.
Does your robot create an error when it is cleaning only six square feet ? Does it need to be recharged ?
We would first suggest you to shutdown directly the robot, as it will reset its cleaning memory. To do so, please open the menu and select “Support” and then “Shutdown”. After doing so, please charge your robot with the charging station, for the next 4 to 6 hours. Please try again after the charge is completed.
Please let us know how it goes.
Thanks for the quick response!
No errors. Restarted it. Discharged the battery and fully recharged per Neato’s instructions on their site. 
One thing I didn’t do was clean the sensors. I just now blew out the sensors with compressed air and wiped the area around the ‘eye’ with a clean cloth. I’ll post back the results.
Have you tried the robot in a small room to see if it will come out of the docking station, clean it entirely and then return to dock? When the robot cleans only 6 square feet does it return to the docking station? Does it say that it’s batteries need to be recharged?
How old are your robot batteries? It is possible that the batteries will need to be replaced. The power management is not the same in the new robots to allow them to have a longer lifetime but, the robot may not clean as long if you have older batteries that are close to the end of their lifetime.
OK, so apologize for jumping in on a post, but I am having a similar problem with my VX-14. We have done all the troubleshooting possible with Neato Technical Support (NTS). We’ve re-trained batteries, drained and re-charged batteries, re-flashed the machine, etc etc etc. What NTS is suggesting is that I send it in to Dextron to have the machine blanked and re-imaged. Now being an IT Professional and having been into the machine via USB and PuTTY assisting them in troubleshooting, I would think that I should be able to accomplish this task with those tools. I have downloaded the Programming Guide from NTS but cannot quite figure out the commands to accomplish this. Any guidance on getting this done with the tools that I have described? Thanks in advance for your assistance!
FYI, something about the behavior of my robot. It is not constraining itself to a 6’X6’ area and then going back to recharge. Mine is only cleaning a 3’X3’ area and then states the “I am returning to my starting point” as is it is stuck in Spot Clean Mode. Most of the time it seems to want to stay in Spot Clean Mode, but every once in a while is actually performs in House Clean Mode. It’s very odd. Anyway, this is why NTS is suggesting that the machine be blanked and re-imaged.
Hi DWLaurie,
With these new information in mind, unfortunately we would suggest you to try update the robot if you haven’t done it with our answer to your other post. If you have already, then unfortunately we cannot help you regarding the procedure on how to re-image the robot. We usually do not proceed with that procedure, since it doesn’t guarantee it’ll fix the problem. It does seem the problem you are experiencing is either from the motherboard (programming) or the RPS Laser itself, which gives wrong values to the motherboard.
OK, thanks for the response, I will see what I can do and respond back if I am successful. Thank you!
