pic: The Robettes Battery charging station

[Jon Stratis]

[cdm-description=photo]35785[/cdm-description]

[Travis Hoffman]

In addition to displaying a neat, practical creation, this pic seems to show that your team gives your batteries names. I think that deserves extra cool points right there. :p

Those don't appear to be the exact kit chargers - can you provide a specific manufacturer and part number?

[Alan Anderson]

Those don't appear to be the exact kit chargers - can you provide a specific manufacturer and part number?

They look to me like they're the front panels from the newer Shumacher chargers, just mounted upside down.

[RUFINESS]

Nice :D

They look to me like they're the front panels from the newer Shumacher chargers, just mounted upside down.

actuality they are the kit chargers just dissembled
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/img/4bb/4bbdaf42cf777dff33b4ebe755c44a9b_l.jpg

[Jon Stratis]

As Alan said, they are the newer kit chargers, by Schumacher. We found a set of 4 chargers on ebay pretty cheaply. Once opened up, there are two circuit boards connected by a (i think) 5 pin ribbon cable. One board does all of the "work", while the other handles all of the control (switching between 2, 4, and 6 amp, and switching between 6 and 12 volts). We simply took the whole thing apart, added some extra wire to the ribbon cable, and mounted the front where you can see in this picture, and the back in a section behind the batteries - see http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35787 for details.

And yes, our batteries have names. Alfalfa, Bertha, Chester, Diana, Edward, Franklin and Ginny (I think... it's hard to remember). Sadly one of them (I think it was Bertha) took a 6-foot dive off another shelf during the build season, and was immediately labeled bad and set aside to be recycled. The big question though... what's the next name going to be?

[elemental]

That is so cool! :yikes:


And yes, our batteries have names. Alfalfa, Bertha, Chester, Diana, Edward, Franklin and Ginny (I think... it's hard to remember). Sadly one of them (I think it was Bertha) took a 6-foot dive off another shelf during the build season, and was immediately labeled bad and set aside to be recycled. The big question though... what's the next name going to be?

Hector, Herbert, or Harry so Harry can be with Ginny?

[yarden.saa]

can you add more information about the size of this cart?

[Jon Stratis]

I don't have any spec's here (and likely won't be in the build space to measure for another month or two), but some general estimations:

- Each side is approximately the same width as two batteries, making the total width about that of 5 batteries (when you include the wood and the overhang from the work surface)
- Its depth is probably about two battery widths - as you can see from the picture, it's about the same width as the table next to it.
- Its height is about a foot higher than the standard folding table next to it - about waist height to provide a good working surface while standing in the pit.

Overall, the footprint is a little bigger than half a standard folding table, while being a little higher for comfort while standing.

Keep in mind that we more or less eyeballed it while building. The work surface came first (an old butchers block), and the rest was designed as we went around that and the requirements for the batteries.

[yarden.saa]

I don't have any spec's here (and likely won't be in the build space to measure for another month or two), but some general estimations:

- Each side is approximately the same width as two batteries, making the total width about that of 5 batteries (when you include the wood and the overhang from the work surface)
- Its depth is probably about two battery widths - as you can see from the picture, it's about the same width as the table next to it.
- Its height is about a foot higher than the standard folding table next to it - about waist height to provide a good working surface while standing in the pit.

Overall, the footprint is a little bigger than half a standard folding table, while being a little higher for comfort while standing.

Keep in mind that we more or less eyeballed it while building. The work surface came first (an old butchers block), and the rest was designed as we went around that and the requirements for the batteries.

does the cart can be in the robot shipping box with the robot and other thing??

[Jon Stratis]

We haven't put it in our shipping container, but then again we don't need to. Both competitions we went to last year were in driving distance (one in town, the other a day's ride by bus), and it fits perfectly in one of the compartments at the bottom of a standard coach bus (laying on its back).

The cart is built to take a beating, which unfortunately means it's heavy. It took 4 of us to lift it into a truck. While i think we could fit this in our crate with the robot, I doubt we ever will due to the weight. As I'm sure you've found with your robots in the past, designing and building something to be light weight in addition to having all the functionality you want makes things a lot harder.

[yarden.saa]

thank you,
I liked your cart because it's functional, I wanted to know if it is fit to the crate because at the last championship at atlanta we had to travel 15 hours flight so wh had to put our cart in the crate, after the summer we will build cart on base your cart eith some adjustments, great cart

[jspatz1]

My only question is: Why isn't it pink? :confused:

[Jon Stratis]

The official answer... we wanted to use up our left over blue paint, instead of buying new pink paint. The unofficial answer... us mentors didn't want to be staring at a huge pink box every day in the build space :p