I have searched everywhere for an answer to this and can’t find it.
I have the Roomba iRobot 4212. It starts like it usually does, goes in a circle, then just completely dies. No beeps, no lights, NOTHING. Just dead. It charged overnight this time, has charged for three days after a “reset” one time, same thing.
There was a point where this machine had a problem with shuddering and constantly backing up after it ran into something. Someone in a forum I was reading said cliff sensors might be the problem, so I bought a can of compressed air and cleaned everything out extremely well. Then it started acting this way with the just completely shutting off.
Then I took the whole thing apart and cleaned it extensively. There was so much crap in there it was almost unbelievable. I unscrewed everything there was to unscrew and cleaned everything. EVERYTHING. I took apart the dust bin and cleaned that little fan in there, too.
It’s a brand new battery. Any ideas on what’s wrong here? I would love to replace whatever part is jacked up. I just don’t know what part I need.
@rpaxton516, are you charging the robot trough the charging station or the wire plugged directly into the robot? If you are using the charging station then try charging the robot using the wire plugged in the robot directly. Let charge overnight and try it to verify if the robot as more charge. Let us know how it goes.
@BHubert - it’s been through the wire plugged directly to the robot. I threw away the charging station because it wasn’t working right.
@rpaxton516, it sounds like the robot is not properly charging, is there any lights when charging? Any error messages? It can either be caused by the charging power jack module or the motherboard. We usually proceed with replacing the power jack module first and then test the robot, if that does not fix the issue we then replace the motherboard. The parts for this model will not be easy to find as it has been discontinued for some time. We do not have any of these parts anymore.
@BHubert - thanks for the thoughts about the power jack and the mobo. I do have another similar robot at home. I can take them both apart and swap out the jack and see if that works, if not, I can try swapping the mobos. what a fun and frustrating project!!! can’t wait! haha
also of note, the lights do come on during the charging - flashing red light when charging, green steady light when finished. that’s what’s making me think it’s not a problem with charging.
@rpaxton516, we suggest that you try out the swap, at least to rule out this possibility. You could of also have received a bad battery, certainly if you have already proceeded with the battery reset procedure. Let us know how it goes.
I don’t think the power jack swap is going to be the solution. I put the fully charged battery from the 4212 into my other robot (whose model number I don’t have handy but is also a 4000 model, it’s a Scheduler), and it ran great. So, the 4212 charging the battery is not the problem. I left the battery in the other robot and charged it over night, lights come on as if it’s charging, and then I had a steady green light this morning. Now when I turn that robot on, it’s as if it didn’t charge. It had a green light when the charge was done, then when I unplugged it and turned it on, it had a red light and was running as if it was ready for another charge. So it seems that the 4212 will charge the batter just fine, but the other one won’t. It’s almost comical.
@rpaxton516, if we understand correctly you put the battery from the 4212 in the scheduler and it worked correctly, for how long did it work? What if you put the scheduler battery in the 4212 does it work? After you tested the battery from the 4212 in the scheduler when it went for recharge it didn’t work after ? If this is the case it really sounds like the battery can’t recharge properly. In that case the battery is defective.
You’re correct, I put the fully charged battery from the 4212 into the Scheduler and it ran on max for maybe an hour and a half before sounding completely pathetic and ready to die. Then I left the battery in the Scheduler overnight, had the green light this morning, unplugged it, pressed power, light was red, pressed clean and it ran as if it hadn’t charged at all overnight. Now why would it act as if it was charging and not really charge? I feel like I would like to get a new power jack and mobo for each of them and start over!
@BHubert
I think I give up. At first it was fun taking apart the robots and cleaning them and then they would work again, but now, it’s just bringing me too much frustration because the fix is outside the scope of my abilities. And they’re OLD machines. If it was easy to find parts, I would reconsider, but I’m not going to spend any more time on this endeavor. The last straw was running the diagnostic on it and it failed at the end - where you had to plug the charger in. I got the flashing red power light that would not go off until you remove the battery. Oh well.
