portable controls w/o using tether
 

yo, Team 1505 here, one question, is it possible to walk with your robot and drive it at the same time with out using teather cables. the only issue is getting power to the user interface and the radio

if anyone has a solution to this problame let me know

Re: protable controls w/o using teather
 

You can safely power the OI from a robot battery or something smaller, as long as its in the 9-12 V range. We have done this many times. Just destroy an OI AC adapter and hook up the wires to your battery, paying careful attention not to reverse the polarity.

Re: protable controls w/o using teather
 

Yes there is a way, Very Simple as well



http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...light=Portable

It's one of the many things that us FIRSTers have put together to make life easier. =)

Re: protable controls w/o using teather
 

Powering the OI is only one half of the problem as originally posed... You still need the tether for communications. Use of radios in the pits is forbidden...

Re: protable controls w/o using teather
 

As stated above you can infact run your OI off of batteries, its quiet simple, you dont have to butcher a power supply if you dont want, you should be able to buy the connector as its a standard size, although that size espaces me right now, and just connect a batter to it.

As stated that is only half your battle as FIRST forbids the use of radio communication during competition. If your talking about just doing this for a demonstration or a parade, then your fine, but this wouldn't be possible at competition due to the radio restrictions.

Hope this helps.

Josh

Re: protable controls w/o using teather
 

Yes, you can buy the right sized barrel connectors at Radio Shack or your favorite electronics store, or if you have some old adapters laying around (that have the right size end) just chop off the adapter and you have a nice long wire attached to the barrel.

Re: protable controls w/o using teather
 

Thanks for posting that thread.

Here is the link mentioned in that thread to my white paper on how to make a Portable Power Pack for the OI:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pa...le&paperid=362

If you have any questions just let me know

Re: protable controls w/o using teather
 

Your welcome and my fault for not mentioning that if your gonna do this at competition that you MUST use a tether so that the robot doesn't interfere with other robots in the pits or on the field - sorta like a direct link to the robot with out the use of channels =)

Re: protable controls w/o using teather
 

Can you use one of the blue rechargeable RC backup batteries? Do they have enough voltage to run the OI? They're about 7 volts or so.

Re: protable controls w/o using teather
 

I asked IFI that a couple of years ago about using a 7.2 NiCd rechargeable and they said it's a bit under powered and to go get a 9.6 rechargeable from RadioShack, the kind for RC hobbies. Then just splice a barrel connector in parallel to the connector on the rechargeable battery and *poof* your ready to go and you can still easily recharge it.

Re: protable controls w/o using teather
 

yea, we just need it for a convention at the salt palace in salt lake city in a few days

Re: protable controls w/o using teather
 

Yea, this year i powered my team's controller with the little blue batteries. Surprisingly enough the OI will operate. Our batteries were always overcharged by the charger. But as the batteries die you will notice strange OI behavior, luckily when the batteries start to die the radio is the first thing to stop working.

Re: portable controls w/o using tether
 

My team and I built a portable OI powersuppy using a recharble 9.6V nicad battery from radioshack. we built an adaptor cable to take the battery end and convert it to what the OI uses so if we find we need more batteries for longer demenstations we don't have to modify them we can just go to radio shack and buy them.

Re: portable controls w/o using tether
 

I built an OI power system into our custom operator interface with 3 9v batteries and a jack for wall power. there is even a swich to change modes. our captain, who asisted, will probably post a picture of it later. my project for next year's oi is to make a rechargeable system that autuomaticly transfers. to do this, i need to find a 9.6 volt charger that can support the drain of chargeing a battery and powering an oi at the same time. does anyone know if this has been atempted before?

Re: portable controls w/o using tether
 

Am I reading this right? This will essentially be a mini-UPS. That is a really neat idea!