Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian Kaplan
While I will let someone on my team talk about the specs of the charger, I can say that we used this charger at the New Jersey Regional with no problems.
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Just remember that what flies at one venue may not go over well at another. This is as old as FIRST (or, as old as multiple venue FIRST). The folks who were working at NJ probably aren't going to be at the same venue you are this week. And, as an aside, one of the least effective arguments in these sorts of debates with on site staff is "well, it was ok at X regional..."
They may well be wrong, and at a minimum should have articulated clearly what the issue and their thinking was. If that didn't happen, then yeah, there is a valid issue that should be discussed and resolved so everyone can make a better call in the future.
I did look up the specs on the charger model listed in the OP. The specs are a little confusing, but from what I can tell it has three charging rates- 12, 8 and 2 amps. Of those, only the lowest setting would be safe and,
in previous years, legal. Whats worse is the product brochure makes it sound like this is entirely automatic and not user controllable (though I find that hard to believe). While there is no rule this year stating you can't use higher charge rates, I would agree with any FIRST personal who requested that you not exceed 6 amps. If you couldn't make sure the charger stayed below 6 amps then having you remove it from the pits would be defensible in my mind. Some teams may be comfortable with a higher charge rate, but I
really don't believe it's worth it.
I found the product manual at
http://www.northerntool.com/download...als/167821.pdf . Let me know if that isn't actually the same model you have.