Change battery Neato XV

Hi -

The cell chemistry used for the neato pack is NiMH, six cells connected in series for a total of 7.2V per pack.

The charging circuitry on the XV is built with NiMH in mind and the pack user a thermistor to regulate voltage when it nears a full charge.

Long and short - do not try too use Lithium cells as they may get explodey, stick to the NiMh cells.

With that said, the packs are fairly simple to construct if you have a welder and nickle strips to connect the cells or are semi decent with a soldering iron. You can repurpose the terminal connectors and thermistors in each pack to reconstruct your DIY one. Cut off the plastic casing on both packs and use one as a template as you build the second new one. I managed to pull this off but am now experiencing a software issue or possible motherboard issue so take it with a grain of salt.

As long as the cells physically fit, you’re golden. Any cell 65mm by 16mm or below will fit in the housing of the XV series Neato’s. There is apparently a cap of 3200mAh in software per pack (unverfied from very old robot vacuum forum from 2014), I used 2000mAh cells which may be causing my issue. The vacuum ran just fine until I let it charge overnight and all !&&* broke loose..

So - yes, you can construct your own pack. No - you should not use Li Ion in place of NiMh. I got mine working but have a soft lock issue to contend with now so there may be consequences (note I had this error prior to building the new packs so don’t let that discourage too much)