Battery Beak

[Brandon Martus]

• Tired of guessing which battery is the best seconds before a match starts?
• Ever have a battery test at full capacity at the beginning of the season only to have it die at the start of a match?
• Looking for a battery tester that is compact, portable and provides instant results?

If yes then the Battery Beak is what you are looking for. The Battery Beak is a battery health analyzer designed for use with the Lead Acid Batteries used in FRC and the NiMH batteries used in VEX Robotics.

The Beak provides information about a batteries State of Charge, Load Voltage, Internal Resistance and battery quality in less than a second.

The Battery Beak is new and available from Cross the Road Electronics, LLC.

www.crosstheroadelectronics.com

[Ether]

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...3&postcount=12

[Jared Russell]

I am very excited that this is available, and will surely be purchasing (at least) one!

However, is there a way you could shrink the images on the portal page just a little bit? It is sort of squishing the recent posts area and making it difficult to read, even on my widescreen display.

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by Jared341

I am very excited that this is available, and will surely be purchasing (at least) one!

However, is there a way you could shrink the images on the portal page just a little bit? It is sort of squishing the recent posts area and making it difficult to read, even on my widescreen display.

Seconded (both comments).

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Ether

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...3&postcount=12

The web site states that it uses internal resistance.

The auto industry has been using internal resistance for battery health (but not state of charge) for many years. In general, the higher the internal resistance, the worse the condition of the battery. You must properly characterize the battery (chemistry, capacity) for this to work properly.

The screen display shows three voltage readings at different current values, I speculate that this is used in addition to internal resistance to measure battery condition. This is an even older (and some say more accurate) method for battery condition. In the auto industry, it is (or was) common to have a carbon pile load to test batteries, rule of thumb was 3x the Ah rating in amps, check the voltage at 15 seconds.

I will also speculate that state of charge is calculated by measuring open circuit voltage after a small load (like 18A for 10 seconds) is used to remove any possible surface charge.

Assuming the designer knew what she was doing, using these three methods (none of which are technically challenging) should produce repeatable results that are accurate enough for our purposes.

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by Brandon Martus

The Battery Beak is new and available from Cross the Road Electronics, LLC.

www.crosstheroadelectronics.com
[/center]

I searched and searched, but found no where to actually purchase it! I know Cross the Road Electronics markets through AndyMark, but nothing there either.
So, where and when can it be purchased?

I'm no electrical guy, so I don't know what this is competing against, but is this good? Is it worth the money, and how much would someone recommend getting this?

Thanks!

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

I'm no electrical guy, so I don't know what this is competing against, but is this good? Is it worth the money, and how much would someone recommend getting this?

Thanks!

I don't know the market for battery testers but I know the CTR guys, they release products when they are ready and not before.

[R.C.]

Our team has held off on buying a battery tester and we are pretty excited to buy this guy.

Mike, would you happen to have a video demo?

-RC

[Mike Copioli]

No video yet but I should have a user manual posted this week or the beginning of next week. Also Andymark will also be distributing these starting in December. In the mean time they may be purchased from the CTRE site http://www.crosstheroadelectronics.com/Beak.html , I should have an "Add to Cart" link up some time today.

[Foster]

Just ordered mine, hope to have it next week to go through our VEX battery sets before the big 3 December event.

I saw this at IRI and wanted one then, I'm very happy to see that Mike was able to turn these around through manufacturing so quick.

I'm also very happy that he took my suggestion to add a mode for the 7.2 volt VEX battery packs, this will end the "is it charged or not" at our events.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

This is a great idea! Seriously, every team should have one of these.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

This is a great idea! Seriously, every team should have one of these.

2012 KOP Item...? (A guy can dream)

Looks like we'll be getting one of these to test our batteries pretty soon. I'm really tired of being given a battery that 'says' it's charged and finding out that it's half dead after autonomous mode...

[de_]

How much are they ?

[Ether]

Originally Posted by de_

How much are they ?

Click on the "Battery Beak" link in the original post.