What device does your team use for holding your batteries? I am not looking for people to post things that you can buy from websites like andymark but things that your team has made to hold the batteries that you think is cool and different.
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We fold sheetmetal boxes and put a velcro strap across the top
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We have made little boxes and velcroed batteries down, or in the past couiple years, 1" x 1" angle iron little pans with velcro straps to hold it down. Only downside with that is it relies on the velcro heavily, so if it somehow doesnt get strapped down, then it will 100% come out.
We 3d Printed one
Its the white rectangle next to the 3d printed Planetary gearbox
About half the time recently, 3946 has used the AM14U battery holder. When that hasn’t worked, the most common way has been to place the battery on an aluminum plate, put angle aluminum around it on four sides to keep it from sliding (originally bolts, more recently rivets), and put another piece of angle aluminum along a top edge extending past the battery sides, and securing it with a threaded rod and wingnut setup (usually 5/16"). You can see the top part of the most recent iteration of this here. Mini-Koopa has brass wing nuts because the nearby Ace hardware was out of steel ones when the time came. IIRC, the bottom of the threaded rod assemblies are made of a short (3/4"?) pan-head bolt going through the base plate into a coupling nut, and then the threaded rod in the top of the coupling nut.
Edit: note that the battery is not always upright; we have done the same thing with a horizontal battery on a larger base plate in the past. It’s just that when we’ve been able to have a horizontal battery lately, we’ve been able to use the holder made for the KoP.
we generally make an electronics box from wood, and incorporate the battery box into this structure. And make it so the battery goes in from the top, in a terminals-up orientiation. And retain it with a velcro strap, And attach the robot side Anderson connector to the box, so you can plug/unplug the cable with one hand.
it’s been pretty successful so far.
We typically use polycarbonate that is bent to form a box. The side with the finger grips on the battery is held by a formed piece of polycarb that snaps into that opening. To remove the battery you just flex the formed piece out of the finger grip hole and lift the battery out.
When we don’t use polycarb, we generally use polycord (bungee) pulled tight over the battery and over a retention hook of some sort.
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we 3D print hooks that fit into the slots underneath the terminals and then just velcro across the top. that constrains it from top to bottom, and side to side.
+1 to this. Once you firmly mount the robot side connector to an accessible spot on the chassis, you’ll never go back.
We cut a box out of aluminium, bend it, and weld it. The battery is retained with a velcro strap. +1 on rigidly mounting the robot-side anderson connector. Just make sure you don’t mount it in such a way that it will exert force on your battery leads/connections. We had this issue last year, and it caused some battery connections to loosen; until we made some of our battery-side cables longer.
Last year, we used the kitbot chassis with a cutout in the front, and used that extra piece of end plate to hold the battery since it has a 3" inside dimension, same as the battery. We mounted the battery upright between the drive motors and used velcro to strap the battery down.
Edit: re-reading OP, it does come from AndyMark, though it isn’t sold as a battery holder.
The battery clamps in 148’s X019 are pretty cool.
We made our own out of sheet metal however something similar is probably buildable by bending lexan or something of the sort.
Note that the battery-side cable may be no longer than 12" per leg, per R5b and R15c. Or more precisely: If the battery side cable is longer than 12" per leg, the battery assembly must be included in the robot weight and must have been fabricated since kickoff.
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How did all of the electronics being mounted to the bottom of your bot work out for you last year? We may be in a situation where that may be our best bet, but I’m concerned about maintenance and many other things as well. I also have to convince the students it is viable, which is no small endeavor.
we just milled a proper hole out of lexan
We really liked it last year. Swarf falls out, accessing the electronics was easy compared to top-down robots where we have to reach past mechanisms, nothing came loose besides our compressor during testing (thru-bolting solved that issue), and we never damaged an electronic component.
A number of high-profile teams, like 1678, have used this approach and have enjoyed the same benefits we have.
How did inspectors and FTA’s like everything on the bottom? I am assuming your Robo-RIO and radio were mounted somewhere more visible?
Also, were you ever lifted by other teams last year? If so, were you concerned with arms or the like ruining any electronics under your bot? I guess you could put a protective sheet or plate down there, but that just adds more weight.
They were generally fine with it. The RoboRio and Radio were on top.
We were never lifted, either we had ramps (which we eventually ditched) or we had our own ‘climb and ditch’ mechanism. We didn’t want to have to be lifted, but it was never an issue.
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