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Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
DON'T DO THIS! If you do it, please be far away from me in the pits. I hate the smell of burning electrolyte and have never very much cared for shrapnel. As a few informed people have said on these fori in the past, FIRST means just what the rules state. Charge a single battery with a single charger at no more than 6 amps or the battery will be damaged and people might get hurt. Think about the consequences of connecting the 7.2 volt battery in parallel with the 12 volt battery. Even if the 7.2 volt battery was charged the potential difference is 12-7.2=4.8 volts. This voltage will drop across the internal resistance of each of the batteries and assuming that the NiCad resistance is very small then 4.8v/.011 ohms=436 amps Is that enough to scare you? If the gods are smilling on you, the NiCad will short and the wires feeding it will go incandescent for a few seconds before they burn open, showering the pit with burning copper and vinyl insulation.
As Ken has stated above, under no circumstance charge multiple batteries in parallel unless the charging system was intentionally designed for that duty. Chargers of that type are usually prohibitively expensive for teams to own.
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It was a joke, hence the wink.
The real reason for making it is to reduce clutter and organize the pit. I guess I could make a box to house the 6 amp FIRST supplied chargers. I thouht more than a handful of teams had battery charging boxes, but I guess not.