I was wondering if any team has converted the power of the robot battery to an AC power outlet that you can plug into. I don’t know if it’s possible or not because I’m not very familiar with electricity I was just curious.
Yes, this is absolutely possible with an FRC battery or car battery. The device is called a power inverter.
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Yup! I’ve definitely adapter more than 1 car AC Inverter to plug into an SB-50 over the years. Eventually I made an SB-50 to Automotive Auxiliary Power Outlet/Cigarette Lighter Port adapter so I could leave it unmodified.
We learned the value of doing this while waiting in the queue at FiT Championship. The 118 drive coach asked how our laptop battery was doing then told us to plug it into the inverter installed on their robot cart.
We ended up installing one at Houston Championship because the queues for the practice field were so long. There are many options that will work. I think this is the one that one of the parents picked up for us.
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Yep, we always run a power inverter on our robot cart to keep the laptop fully charged. Big help at worlds when the field can be a 10minute walk just to queue and then you sit there for up to 20-30min depending on when you arrive and how fast the field is running.
Can also attest to this, our team uses an old car inverter that we just removed the 12v car outlet and put the battery Anderson connector on the instead. Makes it great for our outreach events that we do that don’t have power for our drive station laptop, such as outdoor festivals.
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We run our scouting laptop in the stands with a battery and an inverter.
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+2; we have the inverter built into the robot cart (that also powers the bling) and a robot battery powered scouting box (charging tablets and laptop).
Do make sure that your junky batteries are used for this 
You could buy a UPS like this to solve the problem.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BJ68JBSQ/ref=sspa_dk_detail_4?pd_rd_i=B0BJ68JBSQ&pd_rd_w=WcVJg&content-id=amzn1.sym.386c274b-4bfe-4421-9052-a1a56db557ab&pf_rd_p=386c274b-4bfe-4421-9052-a1a56db557ab&pf_rd_r=9F339DY9Q5DRC9CN2MFK&pd_rd_wg=SCiMg&pd_rd_r=cfcaef95-fbc0-47c4-a319-f66f264c0ee4&s=aht&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9kZXRhaWxfdGhlbWF0aWM&th=1
The only issues I see with this solution, IMO, is cost and portability. The price point of a UPS system such as this could be pretty steep depending on the intended use. If you need to it for some pretty high current draw devices, then yes this might be a better solution. But for most applications such as the examples of powering laptops and such, an Inverter can be half, if not less than the cost of a UPS. And can utilizes a battery that all teams already have. And UPS’ are generally pretty heavy not meant to be portable. The particular one that you linked although is not terrible for weight, being just under 10lbs. Most UPS systems are a lot heavier.
I really like Ryobi’s 18v+car inverter
You can use the alligator clips to go directly to a 12v battery and get the full 1000w. If you use a 12v car plug or a 18v tool battery it does less. So in your use case its the best use case for it. You get two ac plugs, 2 regular USB and a high watt usb-C.
Kind of pricey but if you can find them on sale they are nice. I keep one in my shop at home and take it to robotics events when needed. It also gives you a readout of the batteries current voltage which is doubly handy for FRC usage.
Comes with wall mounting brackets so you could mount it to a battery cart or a workbench in a more permanent setup
Here’s what we run:
Sorry, the 'zon link isn’t good anymore.
Works great, and has an auto “battery is too low, I’ma gonna whine and shut off”
My team had used the robot battery and a couple of different inverters for the robot cart. For portability at events without the cart and now at the competitions, too, we use Jackery available from many sources and sizes.
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