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Ridgeback Maintenance

Battery Replacement​

If Ridgeback's batteries need replacement, they are accessible by removing the top-plate and the insulator cover. Before performing any service or maintenance to the robot, the battery pack must be fully disconnected. The batteries weigh approximately 33 kg (73 lbs) each, so use care and caution when lifting the batteries out of the chassis. Please contact Clearpath Robotics regarding replacement batteries.

It may also be necessary to remove the antenna cables carefully prior to removing the batteries.

Long-term storage​

When storing Ridgeback for long periods of time, its important to properly maintain the batteries to fully maximize their life. Consider one of the following two procedures when placing Ridgeback in long-term storage:

  • Fully charge Ridgeback, turn it off and put it into storage. Once a week, connect power to the charger and allow the charger to top up the battery for an hour or so.
  • Fully charge Ridgeback, turn it off and put it into storage, but leave the charger connected and powered the entire time Ridgeback is in storage via a wall timer that turns off for one hour every 24-hour cycle. The charger will monitor the battery and will automatically charge it up as needed. Note that the wall timer is needed since the charger times out and turns off otherwise.

Please contact Clearpath Robotics for additional information about Ridgeback's batteries.

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 ROS 1 Melodic, ROS 1 Noetic and ROS 2.

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​

Refer to firmware update instructions. Be sure to select the ROS 2 distribution that matches the ROS 2 distribution installed on your robot.

WD Blue SA510 SATA SSD Critical Firmware Update​

warning

Some computers shipped with a WD Blue SA510 SATA SSD, for which the manufacturer has posted a critical firmware update notice.

Failure to perform the firmware update could result in permanent failure of the SSD.

See these instructions to check if your SSD is affected and to perform the update.

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 Robotics Stack Exchange. 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 on Robotics Stack Exchange for the benefit of the community.

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