Backup battery will not power RC

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Mike Betts

It sounds as if you both have dead batteries...

We have had no problems with the 2005 RC and backup batteries. However, I will do a test tomorrow to find out how long the RC runs with a backup battery after the 12V power is disconnected and report on the results on this thread tomorrow afternoon.

I think he is right. I have a fully charged backup battery, and it too turned off a few seconds after I disconnected the 21V battery. I just tested this(Yes, I have a bot sitting right next to my feet.)

[steven114]

Strange. If I have a servo plugged in, it will not power anything. As soon as I unplug the servo, the battery light goes off and all is well. It even keeps running after I remove the main power. But, the instant I plug the servo back in, it all dies.

[steven114]

Hmm. Looks like a shorted servo or something...

[ahecht]

We've experienced the same thing. It seems to be a function of the new firmware. With the old firmware, when you shut of the breaker, the robot controller would stay on until you reset it, draining the backup battery. There seems to be a 5 second shut-off delay now, which should be sufficient for covering most voltage drops.

[Charly]

I can definitely tell you that with the old firmware the backup battery did indeed keep the RC on. However I haven't had a chance to test the new master code, but I'll try it out whenever I get a chance and post my results as well.

[Mike AA]

Earlier today or late last night close enough to each other, I updated the firmware on our RC. I charged the backup battery a couple days ago and have been running it with a 12 volt jump pack running the robot electronics and testing the camera. today while just letting it run ( at least an hour) with the camera connected and a servo on the camera and 2 speed controllers and a relay all connected running properly and I had the dashboard viewer running. I watched the main battery fluctuate between 12.6 and 12.2 as I tested controls and watched the backup battery slowly die off fairly slowly. I walked away a few minutes and came back and saw the red light on the RC saying dead/low battery. Checking the Dashboard Viewer indeed it was dead, showed around 3 or 4 volts. I would have to say that the problem anyone would be having is simply a dead or low or disconnected.

And yes the RC does turn off after a couple seconds of only on backup, to save battery power.

just my little bit of experience

-Mike

[russell]

I add my vote to the "its the new firmware" column. Ours does the same thing, and I have been wondering why. But even our 2004 bot does it (yes all of our batteries are fully charged), but I did update the firmware on it so I think that is why. I think this is so you dont have to always unplug the backup battery (a serious pain) just to turn the bot off. I was told that the backup battery was supposed to stop you from losing data when the battery goes dead, so I am guessing this new firmware just does some sort of safe shut down sequence in those last few seconds. Or something. I thought EEPROM was not supposed to loose data but whatever.

Mike: In previous years (last year anyway) when you shut down main power, if you had a backup battery plugged in the control system would continue functioning until the backup battery is unplugged. This new firmware seems to change things so that the robot still shuts down, it just waits a few seconds.

[Mike AA]

Originally Posted by russell

I add my vote to the "its the new firmware" column. Ours does the same thing, and I have been wondering why. But even our 2004 bot does it (yes all of our batteries are fully charged), but I did update the firmware on it so I think that is why. I think this is so you dont have to always unplug the backup battery (a serious pain) just to turn the bot off. I was told that the backup battery was supposed to stop you from losing data when the battery goes dead, so I am guessing this new firmware just does some sort of safe shut down sequence in those last few seconds. Or something. I thought EEPROM was not supposed to loose data but whatever.

Mike: In previous years (last year anyway) when you shut down main power, if you had a backup battery plugged in the control system would continue functioning until the backup battery is unplugged. This new firmware seems to change things so that the robot still shuts down, it just waits a few seconds.

I understand that, I would have to guess its to save the battery and also acts like a "UPS" incase of a shortterm surge on the main. I would guess that if you still have a small amount left on the mail it would keep going getting a "blip" from the main. I like the function that it turns of as lastyears's team got annoying to turn it off or unplug it.

[russell]

I have to agree that I like it. Just for a while there I was wondering if there was something wrong with something.