I've seen FAQs and troubleshooting pages that say clean the contacts with alcohol, and that works, but I seriously have to do that every time I run it. The only other thing that will work is jamming something under the Roomba to lean it onto the charging contacts. Is it a crappy base? Are there any diy tricks to give the base better contact?
I had a problem a few weeks ago where it wouldn’t charge and cleaning the contacts didn’t work for me. What did work is taking the bloody thing apart, removing and reinstalling the battery and cleaning things as I put it back together.
You are correct that you shouldn't have to clean the contacts each time. Roombas charge through the electrical contacts on the base station and Roomba, passing electricity from your wall to a battery on the Roomba. From your post it doesn't sound like a base station or battery issue.
We need to diagnose the root cause. It sounds like it's not a contact issue since you've been cleaning them regularly. Check your base station contacts as well.
Is your floor uneven? You shouldn't have to wedge something under the Roomba. If you pick up the Roomba and place it on the base station, does it charge? To me so far it sounds like an issue with the Roomba correctly emplacing on the base station. I would try a different location for the base station to see if that rectifies the issue. If not we can continue diagnosing.
Manually placing the Roomba on the base will make it charge for a split second then it stops. Maybe there is minor unevenness. I'll move it to another wall but without rearranging all my furniture there's really only one spot for it to go.
Haven't found anything that will both give it the right amount of lift AND not make it slippery so the Roomba doesn't just push it around (I have hardwood, not carpet).
Hmm, maybe a mini rug just for the Roomba could work...
From my own experience: it might be the battery. Depending on the age of the battery, of course.
Some years ago when I looked into this myself, I managed to find a resource (blog? YT video?) where the person was able to identify the problematic cell in the battery cluster, remove it, and replace it with a good one. In order to save spending money on a new one, just to be clear.
I don't think this is the video I saw at the time, but there are similarities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFAsFV_7rAk
Shouldn't be the battery. Putting a wedge under the Roomba let's it charge and it has decent runtime. Problem is that the wedge keeps it from moving so it can't start or recharge without manual help.