Driver station power

[EricH]

Originally Posted by team1165wins

I am changing my design a bit. We want our laptop to be able to come off the cart, so I thought of designing a docking station. Are supercapacitors allowed in the driver station? They could probably hold power for use in a little time, and they would charge in no time! Also, I am thinking of dropping the idea of to car battery. Something safer might be better. Also, the team doesn't want the two CIMs because of safety issues. That means that a 6.6 volt LiFePO4 battery at 5000 mAH should suffice. I am expecting the control panel to draw a maximum of 500 mAH, monitoring all batteries, highest PLL and display on highest brightness. BTW, if anyone has been on my website, http://devstuff.no-ip.info, please tell me any concerns or ideas for my 'advanced driver station'. Also, does anyone know how to model a hinge in inventor? I want the drive station to have a little of stashing space!

LiFePO4 at 5 AH? If you're only doing the monitoring, you can probably get away with that. (Barring safety, which I'll get to.) But if you're charging batteries, I'd use something with a lot more charge capacity, say the car battery or maybe a deep-cycle battery.

LiFePO4 batteries are known to need care. Shipping: You can drive 'em, but if you're going to ship 'em you need someone certified to do so at both ends; if you're going to fly 'em, you really mean you're going to drive 'em. No joke. They are a bit less flammable than LiPO... but that's not saying much. Gotta take care of 'em. Oh, and they're not cheap.

Concerns:
--Display panel is OK, but why does it need to integrate with the driver's station? Make it separate--use an ancient laptop or something similar. The DS doesn't need to know that stuff
--You're asking for trouble with the magnets, particularly. Do it just right, you're OK--MAYBE. Do it wrong and the least you can expect is a pinched finger or ten depending on how many are caught between the driver station and the cart. Maybe a bit of a shock, delivered to a person. Maybe some electromagnetic interference. You get the picture.
--No power switch to cut ALL power is listed; that's probably a good idea in case something goes down.

If I were you, I'd stick with a car battery, and use PowerPole connections for all power to the driver's station laptop charger--no magnets whatsoever--and have another means of lockdown. Or, seeing as you're thinking of having an outlet on the cart, just use that.

The REAL question is, Why are you NOT using your laptop's INTERNAL battery, and just charging that?