If you purchased the battery connector from Andymark
http://andymark.biz/am-0009.html
You could then consider this COTS... and an unlimited number could come in.
You are correct that if someone sold the battery and connector together AND you purchased them... they could be considered COTS...
I personally find this (not your comment) ridiculous.
Why go out and purchase AM connectors OR some battery/cable combination just to use this rule?
We used a pneumatic crimper to put on the kit/supplied connectors correctly so we could use them during build season. (Just like we have done before this year..) We also use shrink tubing to protect them...
Now we will have to cut off our crimps/shrink wrap... crimp with some stop-gap method (because we have no pneumatic air supply at the event...) and redo the shrink wrap..simply because we followed a standard, safe, practice that we have used before and have never been called on and didn't expect to be before the ship date.
I don't disagree that by "strict interpretation" that the battery connectors are not COTS... I do disagree when a rule gives teams an advantage because they can purchase a solution and stay under the weight limit by spending more money.
I think that the rule is designed to prevent teams from developing new designs and continuing to work on more than 40 lbs of them after ship date. What advantage does a team have to working on their battery connectors after the ship date?
As I have mentioned before, I believe that the 40 lb rule was designed so that teams could keep their control system and some other subsystem and continue to try to figure out how to use it throughout the season because the control system was new to FRC..
I am wondering what will happen at an event if a team brings in more than 40 lbs... when they find out about the battery rule.
I know many teams that have 6-8 (or more)batteries... and have always had that many for all other years...
2008 rule
The entire ROBOT(including all FABRICATED ITEMS intended for use during the competition in alternative configurations of the ROBOT) and OPERATOR CONSOLE must be crated and out of team hands by the shipment deadline specified in Section 4.5.1.1.
Teams may bring a maximum of 25 pounds of custom FABRICATED ITEMS (SPARE PARTS, REPLACEMENT PARTS, and/or UPGRADE PARTS) to each competition event to be used to repair and/or upgrade their ROBOT at the competition site. All other FABRICATED ITEMS to be used on the ROBOT during the competition shall arrive at the competition venue packed in the shipping crate with the ROBOT.
2007 rule
The entire ROBOT (including all FABRICATED ITEMS intended for use during the competition in alternative configurations of the ROBOT) and OPERATOR CONSOLE must be crated and out of team hands by the shipment deadline specified in Section 4.5.1.1.
Teams may bring a maximum of 25 pounds of custom FABRICATED ITEMS (SPARE PARTS, REPLACEMENT PARTS, and/or UPGRADE PARTS) to each competition event to be used to repair and/or upgrade their ROBOT at the competition site.
2006 rule
R29> Teams may bring a maximum of 25 pounds of custom FABRICATED ITEMS (SPARE PARTS,REPLACEMENT PARTS, and/or UPGRADE PARTS) to each competition event to be used to repair and/orupgrade their robot at the competition site. All other FABRICATED ITEMS to be used on the robot during
the competition must arrive at the competition venue packed in the shipping crate with the robot.
Were we ALL in ignorant noncompliance for all of those years if we didn't ship the batteries with the robot? The rules about shipping batteries have changed over the years... some years we MUST ship batteries (and operator console) and other years we were told that it was not necessary...
If you had 2 batteries and had connected them in the years that it was optional... you were in noncompliance.
Let's just make this easy on everyone... and encourage batteries to be excluded in the rules...the same way the operator console is specifically excluded from the 40 lb rule. It is really just busy work to have to attach and reattach our battery cables at every event...what is the point? We are not redesigning the cable mount... or gaining any real advantage...