2013 EnerSys Genesis NP18-12B KOP Battery/FIRST Choice Weak?

[Chris_Elston]

I was just wondering something.

Our electrical team has gotten around to connecting and charging up the 2 Genesis batteries we got from FIRST Choice and the 1 battery we received from the KOP.

Have you load tested these batteries?

Generally we will cycle out batteries that fail our team specification. Our tester is a standard low-man's automotive 100-AMP load tester, that will load a battery for 10 seconds with a heat resistor and check for weakness using a CCA (cold crank amps) scale, we don't have a computerized load tester yet...this might be the year we purchase one...Typically the automotive 12V standard is 500 CCA for cars.

There will be someone that will probably argue CCA is not a good way to determine battery capacity. But we are establishing a base line with the automotive tester across our batteries and the new ones are the lowest numbers we have ever seen.

Anyway, after charging up the new Genesis batteries from 2013, they are posting about CCA 300 AMPs. Our team spec is no less than CCA 500 AMPs. Generally when we get new batteries, we see about CCA 700 AMPs to CCA 800 AMPs. We have seen this in both EnerSys and MK Batteries in the years past.

However this year...it's different...all three new 2013 batteries...CCA 300 AMPs...

I reference CCA because that is the tester we have, an automotive one.

While we appreciate the donation and are most thankful, we may not use these batteries on the robot this year. We might just repurchase some others. Unless there would be someone that could give us some insight into why we are only seeing CCA 300 AMPs on the 2013 batteries and maybe recommend a better more proven method to measuring battery capacity. Traditionally, we have seen the robot voltage drop below 11 Volts at the end of a 2.5 minute match with a CCA less than 500 AMP battery. Anything higher than that and the battery is generally good enough to even play a second match back-to-back. (Pending how many motors we have that particular year...)

So my questions are:

1. Do you load test batteries?
2. Did you load test the EnerSys Genesis NP18-12B 2013 KOP and FIRST Choice Batteries?
3. What was your results?
4. Can you confirm if your batteries meet your team spec?

Being that 2 batteries came from one source, and 1 battery came from another source...I am wondering if we are an isolated case or not.