On-Board Battery Charger

[bronxbomber92]

In section 8, rule 54 (I believe 54, not 100% sure, but it is in the fifties) it states that FIRST will be posting a "guideline" to build a Charger for the camer'a backup battery, that will charger through the main battery. I cannot find this document posted anywhere. Does any one know where to find it?

Thanks,
Jedd

[JBotAlan]

I believe the document you seek is located here:
http://ifirobotics.com/docs/first-backup-charger.pdf

I found it on Innovation First's website, ifirobotics.com, and it was under Robot Controller.

JBot

[bronxbomber92]

Thanks a lot! I believe this is it :)

[Mike Betts]

Bomber,

Please do a search on this subject. You will find a number of threads dedicated to this subject.

<R56> requires that you use the IFI design if you charge the backup battery on the robot. While the IFI design states that IFI does not support this design.

Many degreed engineers have reviewed this circuit and quite a few of us have reservations about it.

Unless you know what you are doing, I would suggest sticking to off-robot charging.

JMHO.

Mike

[Ben Piecuch]

Mike,

The backup battery charger schematic was changed and updated on Jan. 25th. I believe this new revision corrects the problems that existed with the original charging scheme. You may want to take a look and see if the new revision makes you electrical guys happy. :)

BEN

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Ben,
The answer on that would still be 'NO". There is a long thread about this with some great discussion and a better design.

[Alan Anderson]

I believe this new revision corrects the problems that existed with the original charging scheme.

The revised circuit does make a lot more sense than the original one, but it still has the big problem of letting the backup battery power things connected to the main 12v supply.

I wonder if it would be legal to power the charger from a Spike output.