Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

So the Offical 2004 season has been over for a few weeks now and i was wondering what everyones thoughts on the backup battery was, and what you would like to see of it in the future.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

It was good, because in past years if you ever lost batter connection, or had a incidental short somewhere when got hit.. you could not compete. Your controller would keep resetting and it was quite annoying. The backup batter kept it from being reset which was nice, and you didn't have to wait for the controller to boot up each time.

It didn't do any harm, only annoying part was having to charge it, which rarely happend.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

I did not like how it controlled the servo's. Other than that it was alright. just change it so it does not controll the servo's and its all good!

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

I believe that it was a good feature. The only problem that I had with it was the power remaining after the robot was turned off. I didn't know until comp that the Reset button could turn it off afterwords, so for most of the time we just pulled out the plug, which stripped the connection, and posed a few power problems. Other than this little fact, however, I think that it was a useful addition.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

The battery adds to the complexity of the system. Currently, you must hit a reset button to turn the robot controller off. If there was some smarter software on the robot controller controling power management some of the complexity would be removed. For instance, if the RC doesn't receieve power from it's 12V supply for more than 10 seconds I think it's safe to say the RC no longer needs to continue running and should automaticly shut itself off.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

Was that documented somewhere that I missed? Or was this just a secret? I wish I had known that.

Also, like BillyGoats, I don't think the battery should power the servos. I'd also like to see the battery be charged from the main robot battery (Especially if it is going to power the servos).

I think the backup battery was a good step this year, and with continual improvment will be very valuable.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

We first found out from an inspector.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

One team, I believe it was 980, was helping us out and made us aware of this little secret. Turns out, they hit the reset button by accident and found it out that way.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

It already does this, however the timeout is longer than 10 seconds. It will power down automatically after 2.5 minutes.

I also agree about it powering the servos - it would be a nice enhancement if the servos could be powered off the regular battery (and perhaps fall back to the backup if the main battery dies). My reasoning is that by it being the only source of power for the servos, it's not really a backup battery anymore, but just another required power source. When I think of a backup system, if the backup fails while the primary system is functional, the user shouldn't notice. In this case, if the backup battery fails (and assuming you use servos on your robot), your robot will be crippled even if the primary battery is fine.

Unfortunately, yes... :( Under the "RESET Button" section of the RC reference guide:
I remember someone on our team figured that out the first day we had the kit, but it wasn't me. I guess my engineering instinct kicked in: why read the section on the "reset button"? Everyone knows what a reset button does, right? D'oh.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

I'm neutral about it really. I don't think it was very much of a benefit, unless you had matches close together, not many spare batteries, and a high current draw on your robot.

I think it should be an optional component. My team almost didn't pass inspection, due to the couple of oz. the battery weights. :)

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

Some weird stuff happened to us with the backup battery. When we didnt have it plugged in, our speed controllers spazed out, and the drive motors jerked around. When it was plugged in, everything ran smoothly. I don't know if that just happened to us, or if it was a problem that others had.

Beside that, I think the backup battery was a good idea.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

Oh okay thanks, 2.5 minutes. Seems unnecesarily long, but it's a step in the right direction.

I agree on the servo power issue. It was very misleading for IFI to call the battery a "backup" but have it actually be the primary power source. Backup is usually used to describe a secondary power source. I really hope IFI adds in the regulators and provides primary power to the servos. I don't see having a redundant supply for the servos as being very important.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

We didn't found out about it 'till the 4th week of build season. One of Innovation First papers about this year's control system does say something about that...
From this thread I take that lots of people didn't read it, which kind of confirms something I had thought earlier this year... The documentation on the 2004 control system is a bit confuse and obscure; it should have been more publicized considering the drastic change from last year's electronics.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

it was a good idea-- not a good idea when u can't find the charger or somebody fries one now-- lol--

and remembering to plug it in sort of helps- one thing we forgot to check was it in or not since we weren't use to having it on the robot--just the main battery all zipped tied up

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

The backup battery completely removed the problem of low voltage resets we've experienced in the past. I wonder if those who unconditionally hated the backup battery have had the pleasure of the low-voltage reset before? To me that alone made it worthwhile.
It would be nice if there was a more intelligent sync between the main power system and the backup battery net-- but I understand that this year's system was probably intentionally brutally simple from a design and implementation standpoint.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

we never seemed to have a need for the back up battery aside from competition when it is required we don't even plug it in.

and as for turn off the RC we were told at the SLT regional by IFI after the third time we forgot to plug in the battery.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

Note I don't like the backup much, but that I did mention that. :)

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

To all those who are indifferent about the backups, just don't worry about them and you'll be fine. The RC still runs off of the main battery, and a lot of teams will never have to worry.

To us, they are a godsend, considering the current draw our robot has. Two years ago, when we tried six motor drive for the first time, lack of a backup battery was one of two major setbacks; this lack of available power would cut out our RC in pushing matches. In 2003, they fixed the other problem with the nice 120 amp breakers we take for granted (which used to sometimes pop when we stalled our gearbox). Finally this year the second problem was fixed and we no longer have to worry about our RC cutting out after too much pushing.

In the end, there's nothing really that should make you unhappy with the backup batteries; either they are very useful, or they are neither bad nor good.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

What i was told about time delay shut down after the main power is cut is for matches. When the power is cut or a main battery is lost during a match, or even if the main battery is never turned on, but the "back-up" battery is still there, the LED's still blink. Other then the LED blocks this year your robot alone has no alliance distinction (red or blue) while on the field. The time length supplies the estimated amount of time it would be from the start of a match until the scoring of that match is completed by the refs, so they know who is red and blue right away. Now also when your bot was under arena control and lost the main battery, the light pace changed if the bot was being powered by only the smaller "back-up" battery.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

Excellent, I forgot about that. It looks like 2.5 minutes was a good choice after all.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

I thought it was a really good idea, and it seemed to help with loss of radio packets. In talking with some of the IFI guys when we didn't have our backup battery plugged in for a match or two, they noticed we had a much larger loss of radio packets then those teams who did have backup batteries!

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

I liked knowing the robot would not reset on the field. What I would like is someway to know the voltage level in real time just as we have with the main battery. Several times the IFI person came and told us, just as a match was starting, that our back-up was dead. We had to play with the hope that there was enough juice to power our winch latch servo. Luckily each time it was when we had switched starting positions on the field and it was our partners that had not been plugged in or they never charged it because they did not need it.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

That would be a definate improvement if we the operator could tell what the voltage on the backup batter was.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

If you use the 2004 Dashboard Viewer it will tell you how charged the backup battery is.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

I like the time delay operation of the RC using just the backup battery. We used it pretty extensively to test over in the programming corner without having to setup a 12v power supply. It was also handy just dropping new programs in without having to power-up the rest of the electrical sub-systems.

You can use the User Mode display on the OI (or the dashboard) to display the backup battery voltage, just like the main battery display. You just need to use the matching code. I think the default code was setup to display it.
It does have that floating-point number that you might want to shift out of the way.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

I would like to see it become a pure backup battery - not used to power anything unless the main battery droops

AND

I would like to see it charge from the main battery so you dont have to unplug it and charge it separately. We were able to keep the same main battery in our bot all the time at the events this year, and only needed to put the 6A charger on it between matches to keep it topped off (our drivetrain was very effecient this year)

it would be even better if the backup battery had a charge path back to the main battery so it would stay charged all the time - even when the main breaker and the RC are off.

oh, one last thing: I want the letter "M" stricken from the english language!

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

I agree with everything you said, Ken, except that i bet FIRST won't allow the last part about it charging when the main breaker is off. FIRST wants to be sure that absolutely all possible circuits to the main battery are open when that breaker is off. Logically, it sorta defeats the purpose if you do bypass the breaker with anything.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

Ken posts and the forum readers go wild!
Excellent idea Ken. IFI, if you're lurking on the boards, this is what I want for Christmas next year.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

Gee Mike, I wonder what gave you the idea to post this thread?? :D

I would like to see it again, but as an optional feature that you are not required to use. If you do not choose to use it, then you take your chances with resets.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

Hello everyone!
The backup battery was a great addition to the new controller. It does cover up faults that would have been obvious in the past. If your drivetrain was so current hungry in the past, the low voltage dropout would have alerted you to something being wrong. Without that big indicator, many teams now are going into competition with problem drivetrains that have no indication of problems until they break or die from lack of main battery voltage. That makes it really tough on your alliance partners.
The backup battery powering servoes is another problem in that teams with many servoes risk losing the backup without any previous indication. Although everything on the robot is running fine, none of the servoes work. I think it might be an easy thing to add a charge path from the main battery to the backup for charging and powering the servoes. Since the guys at IFI are really smart, I am betting they have already started working on this.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

That assumes that they didn't do it on purpose. It is possible that they wanted to make sure folks used the backup battery and powering the servos via that battery was one way of encouraging us to do the right thing. It is also possible that they didn't want to pay for the higher cost of a higher current 5 Volt power supply on the RC.

Either way, I would not look for major changes to the RC next year. I have heard some rumblings about a new OI next year, but that could be just a rumor...

Joe J.

Re: Backup Battery...Yay or Neh?
 

Backup battery? What backup battery? The robot has two primary batteries!

Having the backup battery power the servos can be a very depressing thing for your team. 108, in our last match in chicago, finally got the robot up to the point where we attempted a hang. We managed to climb the platform (never before done properly) got up to the bar, and pulled ourselves down on it. The entire chicago regional was going nuts because they'd seen our problems all through competition and we'd finally been able to hang. Then power was cut, and we drifted back to the floor. :( We checked it out later, and found out the backup was dead, thus not firing the servo ratchet mechanism we had.

If it's to be called a backup battery, it should BE a backup battery. That's my 2cents at least.