battery problems and fix?

[Kage]

another thing that our team learned is to never leave charged batteries on a concrete floor, because for some reason, that drains them.

and also, check the leads on the batteries and make sure they are not touching your battery compaqrtment on your robot.

our compartment this year is a tight horizontal slide-in fit, and I told someone to put the terminals on the battery a certain way so they would not short out...but they put them on the opposite way, and needless to say, we had alot of sparks, some black marks on the compartment, and a dead battery...

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Kage

another thing that our team learned is to never leave charged batteries on a concrete floor, because for some reason, that drains them.

How did you measure that? http://www.thebatteryterminal.com/Te...n_Concrete.htm

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Kage

another thing that our team learned is to never leave charged batteries on a concrete floor, because for some reason, that drains them.

and also, check the leads on the batteries and make sure they are not touching your battery compaqrtment on your robot.

our compartment this year is a tight horizontal slide-in fit, and I told someone to put the terminals on the battery a certain way so they would not short out...but they put them on the opposite way, and needless to say, we had alot of sparks, some black marks on the compartment, and a dead battery...

I would HIGHLY recommend getting some heat shrink/electrical tape around those terminals. All of our batteries have heat shrink covering all of the previously exposed metal contacts (the tabs from the battery, the stripped end of the wire leads, and the bolts holding them in) that make shorts like you described impossible. But even with that precaution, we make sure the terminals can't possibly touch the frame, just in case a hole appears in the heat shrink and we don't see it.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

I would add to Eagle's advice, watch when you are attaching the wire terminals to the battery terminal. It makes a difference in which orientation you mount them and on what side of the battery terminal. If you are using the KPA or similar cable clamp style temrinal, simply turn the connector so that the screw faces the inside of the battery then mount on battery terminal on the side facing in. This allows the battery case to protect the terminal from damage.