[EricH]

LiFePO4s have one significant drawback, though.*

Whoever is in charge of shipping them has to have certifications of some type to ship 'em. And that means that if a team should have to ship their robot--you know, like maybe they make one of the Champs--they need to find someone to handle shipping their batteries. Or get certified, which I have no clue on how to do at this time.

If y'all are interested, I happen to know this because of shipping a robot running a pair of LiFePO4s as its primary power source. I wasn't directly involved, but I know that to get the robot--and its batteries--home, arrangements had to be made at that robot's competition for someone to assist.

I'd put those as 2020s technology, most likely. Love 'em, but I don't think they're quite practical enough to use for FRC just yet. I particularly like the fact that they'll run at pretty much the same voltage for a long time before suddenly dropping out--great for embarrassing any battery-changers that forgot that it's every 3 matches instead of every 5 matches.


*Ignoring the price, that is. They aren't all that cheap, yet.