Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

You should. Batteries are expensive, and you do plan on competing in FIRST for multiple years, right?

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

it will to a dead battery but we never plan on putting a dead battery on these chargers. only batteries that are indicated as fully charged by our old chargers. essentially we are just taking a charged battery, and moving i to another charger to maintain trickle. So no, no rules will be violated since it will never get into that state where it can possibly output that much current. No commercial charger is "dumb" enough to output anywhere near that much current to a battery that's indicated as already fully charged. We can argue this until the cows come home but from our observations this state is never achieved so we do fall within the rules.

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

according to the information here: http://www.powerstream.com/SLA-fast-charge.htm with the max charge voltage this thing outputs it can't go into an overcharge state. it can be a higher than 0.3C rating yes but no overcharge.

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

we already have and will continue to. We get about 4 batteries every year and the ones from the previous year are still good so we can manage with those. We care more about battery performance during a game than longevity.

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

I don't see a max output voltage spec for the Stanley BC1509 anywhere on the page you linked.

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

Until you find that the state of a battery includes bulging sides & won't fit in your robot, or until it's smoking. :) Then the manufacture's max current spec may become more important to you.

And before you ask: no, I haven't seen either of these personally. However, I do trust Big Al, who has seen them & told his inspectors at Central IL (one of which was me) about it when he told us to look for >6A chargers.

I'll repeat what someone else said earlier: if it comes down to a disagreement on this -- regardless of the evidence you present -- between your team and the LRI, you're not going to win. Unless you have a Q&A answer that states your chargers are legal. When you craft your question, you should be specific about the charger you would like to use.

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

Thought I might ask here,

We are currently using the Schumacher SSC-1000a 2/6/10amp charger.
It does support motorcycle/tractor/jetski batteries, which the FRC battery seems to resemble.

The amount of charge has to be selected after the battery is attached. We only use the 6a mode during competition and the 2a mode for overnight trickle charge / maintenance.

We are going to order a few more to bring to our regional competition. Is this charger NOT going to be allowed?

Here is a link to the charger information.

http://www.amazon.com/Schumacher-SSC-1000A-SpeedCharge-Battery-Maintainer/dp/B0009IBJE4/ref=sr_1_3?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1394141261&sr= 1-3&keywords=schumacher+sc1000a

Aloha,
Mr. H

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

Of course the float charge will be very small.

What I was asking was how long does it take to get to that certain point, and what is the current while it is getting to that certain point.

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

Are you actually measuring the state of charge with some test equipment?

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

oh sorry it just tells you this when it's charging, when we do put dead batteries on it's 14.x i don't remember the last digit. I can grab a multimeter if need be bu from what i've seen it never goes above 15V which according to that info can't cause an overcharge state

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

That is not necessarily true. It depends on design of the charger and the health and state-of-charge of the battery when the cycle is started.

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

You're probably right. But that still doesn't make it legal. Have you posted to Q&A yet?

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

I can't tell you exact numbers at this moment but i can get them and can use them as proof that we are within the rule. However it's not even really needed all we want to use these Stanley for is trickle. as stated we will be putting fully charged batteries(as indicated by our old chargers) on these stanly so they should only ever be in a trickle mode. even if they arnt' i wouldn't imagine it be more than a few amps anyway but can verify this and will when I get around to it.

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

no not yet, but again the rules state nothing about chargers, only charge rate. I can prove that we fall within the rules with the method mentioned in several other replies of only putting fully charged batteries from old chargers on the Stanley simply to trickle charge. that's what really matters to us is the quality of the trickle charge, not the brunt current capability.

Re: Be aware of battery and charger inconsistencies!
 

I don't agree with inspectors not taking a team's word for it. As mentioned previously, the rule states that we shouldn't charge more than the manufacturer's spec charge rate, which is set at 5.4 Amps. If that's the case, why are you allowing chargers that go up to 6 Amps? If we're adhering strictly to the rules (and FIRST has a tendancy to do that), we shouldn't be charging at 6 Amps either. Most chargers have a selectable charge rate from 2 A, 4 A and 6 A. To satisfy the rule, we would have to charge at 4 Amps. But right there, you're taking the team's word for it that we're going to charge at 4 Amps. The rule doesn't say that chargers that are capable of charging more than that are against the rules. The rule states that teams shouldn't charge more than the recommended maximum charge rate. It's a subtle, yet important difference. If we ruled out all chargers that are capable of charging at greater than 5.4 Amps, then most every team in FRC will need to get new chargers. Take the team's word for it and be done with it.