Robot Battery Placement

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Ekcrbe

They shouldn't be able to. Keep all your battery terminals covered, all the time. Electrical tape is the natural choice to put over the ring terminals and bolts on the battery leads. If you get new batteries and aren't able to put leads on them right away, cover the terminals with tape or caps. It's a really small amount of effort to do, and there's just no sense in taking the risk of shorting a battery on anything.

If you have the terminals somewhere they could run into something outside the robot, most plastic coverings won't save you. For instance, imagine a battery horizontal underneath a robot last year with the terminals down instead of up. Electrical tape isn't going to stay an insulator long in those conditions. It's only protection against momentary incidental contact, not violent contact or repeated rubbing.