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Version: ROS 2 Humble

Dingo Maintenance

Battery Care​

Lead-Acid Battery Care​

Dingo's default power supply is a sealed 12 V lead-acid battery pack (VRLA), providing 20 Ah of charge. These tips are intended to help keep your Dingo Lead-Acid Battery in tip-top shape. With proper maintenance, the battery should maintain the majority of its capacity for hundreds of cycles.

The most damaging thing to a lead-acid battery is a phenomenon called sulfation. When a lead-acid battery is left in an uncharged state for long periods of time, sulfate crystals solidify on the electrodes of the battery. This effect can be permanent, and it causes premature reduction in capacity. Therefore, it is important to fully charge the battery as soon as you are finished using it, regardless of how much capacity remains.

Your robot's battery charger works in 3 stages:

  1. Constant current charging or bulk charge (9 to 14.6 V @ 6 A): indicator LED is red
  2. Constant voltage charging or topping charge (14.6 V @ 6 A down to 2 A): indicator LED is red
  3. Trickle or Float charge (14.6 V @ 2 A down to 0 A): indicator LED is green

The bulk of the capacity (70%) is regained during the first stage.

It is important to let the charger complete all 3 stages whenever possible, to help maintain the life of the battery. The initial stage will take 3 - 5 hours, and a complete charge may take up to 10 hours, depending on the depth of discharge.

In general, following these tips will help maximize the life of the battery:

  • Always fully charge the battery as soon as you are finished using it.
  • Charge batteries at room temperature. Never charge lead-acid batteries at temperatures above 35°C.
  • Charge batteries in a well-ventilated area.
  • Do not allow the battery to freeze. A low battery will freeze sooner than a fully charged one. Never charge a frozen battery.
  • Stored batteries should be topped up every month. Completely cycle batteries every 4 - 6 months.
  • At a discharge rate of 50% DOD (depth of discharge), the lifecycle of the battery is 450 - 550 cycles. After this point, reduced capacity will be apparent.
  • Regularly discharging the battery below 50% DOD will reduce the lifecycle of the battery, sometimes to less than 300 cycles.

Your robot's battery charger works in 3 stages:

  1. Constant current charging or bulk charge (9 to 14.6 V @ 6 A): indicator LED is red
  2. Constant voltage charging or topping charge (14.6 V @ 6 A down to 2 A): indicator LED is red
  3. Trickle or Float charge (14.6 V @ 2 A down to 0 A): indicator LED is green

The initial stage will take 5 - 7 hours, and a complete charge may take up to 14 hours.

LiFEPO4 Battery Care​

note

LiFEPO4 are not available for Dingo 1.0. They are only available for Dingo 1.5 and newer.

Dingo's optional power supply is a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery pack (LiFEPO4), providing minimum 20 Ah of charge. These tips are intended to help keep your Dingo LiFEPO4 Battery in tip-top shape. With proper maintenance, the battery should maintain the majority of its capacity for thousands of cycles, typically a 10x increase over SLA batteries.

The LiFEPO4 battery charger works in 3 stages:

  1. Constant current charging or bulk charge (9 to 14.6 V @ 7 A): indicator LED is red
  2. Constant voltage charging or topping charge (14.6 V @ 7 A down to 0.7 A): indicator LED is red
  3. Balancing or Float charge (14.6 V @ 0.7 A down to 0 A): indicator LED is green

The bulk of the capacity (70%) is regained during the first stage.

It is important to let the charger complete all 3 stages whenever possible, to help maintain the life of the battery. The initial stage will take 2 - 4 hours, and a complete charge may take up to 8 hours, depending on the depth of discharge.

In general, following these tips will help maximize the life of the battery:

  • Always fully charge the battery as soon as you are finished using it.
  • Charge batteries at room temperature. Never charge LiFEPO4 batteries at temperatures above 45°C or below 0°C.
  • Charge batteries in a well-ventilated area.
  • Do not allow the battery to freeze. Never charge a frozen battery.
  • Stored batteries should be charged and balanced every 4 -6 months.
  • At a discharge rate of 50% DOD (depth of discharge), the lifecycle of the battery can be greater than 8000 cycles with an apparent capacity remaining of 70% at that time.
  • Regularly discharging the battery to 80% DOD will reduce the lifecycle of the battery, sometimes to less than 3000 cycles with the same apparent capacity remaining.

Software Maintenance​

Getting New Packages​

note

If you are upgrading your robot from an older version of ROS, please refer to our upgrade instructions for upgrading to Melodic, Noetic and ROS 2 Humble.

Clearpath Robotics robots are always being improved, both its own software and the many community ROS packages upon which it depends! You can use the apt package management system to receive new versions all software running on the platform.

Each robot leaves the factory already configured to pull packages from http://packages.ros.org as well as http://packages.clearpathrobotics.com. To update your package and download new package versions, simply run:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

MCU Firmware Update​

caution

Before flashing firmware, place your robot up on blocks or disengage the drivetrain. Firmware loading does not usually result in unintended motion, but it is safest when off the ground.

1. Download the Clearpath Firmware package from the Clearpath package server​

On an external computer, run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ros-humble-clearpath-firmware

2. Prepare the Robot​

note

Platforms with an Ethernet connection to the MCU have the option of flashing over USB or Ethernet. If you are updating to ROS 2 Humble for the first time, you must use USB. If you are updating ROS 2 Humble firmware to a newer version, using Ethernet is recommended. Skip this step if flashing over Ethernet.

The W200 MCU is located on the underside of the metal frame over the top of the computer.

W200 MCU
W200 MCU labels
  • The RST button, used to reset the MCU.
  • The BT0 button, used to enter the USB bootloader mode.

Place the W200 MCU into bootloader mode

While pressing BT0 on the MCU, connect the external computer to Warthog's MCU using a USB cable.

3. Flash the firmware​

Run the Clearpath firmware flash tool:

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
ros2 run clearpath_firmware flash

Select your platform, then select which method of flashing you would like to use.

caution

Do not turn the robot off or unplug the cable while flashing firmware. If an error occurs while flashing, you can attempt to flash again over USB.

4. Place the robot back into normal operating mode​

note

If you flashed over Ethernet, skip this step.

Press the RST button. The MCU should enter regular operation.

Support​

Clearpath is committed to your success. Please get in touch with us and we will do our best to get you rolling again quickly: support@clearpathrobotics.com.

To get in touch with a salesperson regarding Clearpath Robotics products, please email research-sales@clearpathrobotics.com.

If you have an issue that is specifically about ROS and is something which may be of interest to the broader community, consider asking it on https://robotics.stackexchange.com. If you do not get a satisfactory response, please ping us and include a link to your question as posted there. If appropriate, we will answer in the ROS Answers context for the benefit of the community.

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