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Batteries
Now that my FIRST years are over, I've been having fun with other forms of R/C things, mainly planes. (It's actually quite fun adding the 3rd dimension of control in there) One of the things I've been playing around with is electric planes. Although my electric Spitfire isn't anywhere the size of some of the usual 130 pound robots, I have to look at the difference in the batteries.
I recently listened to a lecture on electric planes. He talked a little bit about how the batteries for these things are now quite powerful. And to prove that he had setup a 10 cell pack of nickel cadmium batteries could repeatedly turn over the V8 engine in his car, and even turn it over faster then his regular car battery.
So where am I going with this? Look at the difference in weight and power between nicad's and the cells we use. Look at the charge time it takes to fully recharge the current batteries. Most nicad's or nickel metal hydride's can be fully recharged around 20 minutes, depending on how many cells you use. They may not hold a charge as long as a car battery, but for how long they hold a charge they will put out more power. The only downside is the price. For top quality cells, they can cost as much as $15 per cell, and if you have a 10 cell pack that's $150 per pack. But those are 5000 mah cells.
Like I said, there's a small difference in size between my airplane and our robots, but would it be possible to use nicad's instead of car batteries?
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