Future FRC Technologies?

[pilleya]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

The full-weight, long-lasting batteries would be great to have for demos and practice time, of course!

There isn't a lot stopping you from using LiFePO4 batteries on your robots for demos and practice time out of competition, it'd be good for demo's but there would probably be a performance difference between the SLA's and the higher capacity LiFePO4's, most likely related to voltage. If a LiFePO4 battery can supply 12.8V constantly, and the SLA quickly drops to 12V, then your motors are going to become 1.14 x more powerful when using LiFePO4 than with SLA.

12.8/12(increase in speed) x 12.8/12 ( increase in torque)=Increase in power.

If you are wanting to have a longer period of time between battery changes for a practice robot, you could put an extra SLA in parallel if you have the space( since this is a practice robot you could fabricate a different battery holder etc.)