Battery Flip-Flop...

[Joe Johnson]

I have heard that at the VCU regional, the officials are claiming only this year's batteries are legal -- not the ones from last year as was officially allowed via the Yahoo! board:

From Message #851

> Can we use different brand batteries other than exide?

A) The only batteries you can use on the robot are the exide
battery from this year's kit of parts or the Yuasa battery from last
year's kit.

From Messsage #661
> 2. Will batteries from previous years be allowed during the
> competitions? (assuming only one battery in system)

We have decided to allow Yuasa/Exide batteries from the 2001 competition to be
used, but not the green CSB or other batteries from prior years.

I have also heard that questions about chargers are also being raised, specifically, only the EXACT make and model that teams got this year are being allowed. If so, this conflicts with another Yahoo! message:

From Message #784
> Frcengineers:
>
> Rule C20 states that only the battery charger supplied or one with
equivalent
> specifications may be used.
>
> The charger manual indicates an output of 1 Amp hour, less than the
battery's
> capacity. We have some level of concern that this may be inadequate
for
> recharging during a match.
>
> Is it legitimate to use a charger of our own as long as its' output
does not
> exceed
> battery specifications? [For example, we have a charger that can
output 2 Ah
> in trickle charge mode or 10 Ah in quick charge mode.]

A) You may not use that charger. See rule C20. You may use another
charger that does not exceed the specifications of this years charger.
Please note that teams will be allowed to recharge their batteries in
the Pits overnight.

I hope that all this gets worked out before the competition starts tomorrow. We can easily suck a battery down to its dregs in 2 matches. If we have to get EXACTLY the battery that we got this year (i.e. not the Yuasa's we used last year and have several spares of as well), we had better order them NOW or we will not have enough batteries to get through the seeding rounds, yet alone the Elimination Rounds, which we hope to be in...

I hope that clearer heads prevail.

Joe J.