The question was brought up last night if we can use 2 batteries on our robot? is that considered illegal because you would have more power than the other robots or not because either way you’re still only going to be running in for only 2 minutes and 15 seconds.
Thanks
Pneumaticsman
Only one battery may be used at one time. With 2 batteries in serial, you’ll be getting twice the voltage (clearly an advantage although it may fry your controls). With them in parallel you get twice the current. Thats an advantage too.
If one of your batteries is for ballast and is not actually acting as a battery, I believe it is allowed.
No - you cannot use extra batteries for ballast. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing with the batteries but only 1 is allowed so you’d better use it for power.
Russ
Ok thank you I just needed some clarification on that. I suppose it’s a good thing we can use it as a ballast though cause we’re gonna need the weight this year, we’re buildin a pretty light bot this year 
Dang it now I read Russ Beavis’ post that said you can’t even use it as a ballast 
sad day
We have a box of pennies at home that weighs 27 lbs…but, how to secure them? 
Last year in the finals at GLR, Mr. Smith from Truck Town lent 1646 a vice grip that we attached to the robot to offset the weight we lost without our arm.
In a gallon milk jug full of polyester casting resin?
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wouldn’t that render the pennies unusable?
ps, if they where shaking around, that would be really loud
From Section 8 Rev E
<R01>
Energy used by FIRST Robotics Competition ROBOTS, (i.e., stored at the start of a MATCH), shall come only from the following sources:
A.
Electrical energy derived from the onboard 12V battery.
Please remember that anything used for ballast must be securely mounted to the robot frame. The intent as with any object on the robot is to provide the maximum safety for the participants including judges, refs, field reset people and other volunteers near the robot.
388 has used actual gym weights bolted to the frame, and team 116 has a 27lb (I believe) block of lead.
Please remember that lead has some nasty properties. If used, it should be sealed in some fashion, paint works well. Teams using lead ballast in the past were required to complete this step to prevent contamination. Please remember to protect team members when working with this substance as it is prepared for a firm mounting on your robot.
If we need ballast this year (current robot weight is 106) we were considering cutting up some 16 gage sheet steel, and screwing it to the bottom of the robot. It would be several pieces so weight could be adjusted easily if needed.
Either you have forgotten something major, or you are my hero! 
In 2007 we used an eight pound sledge hammer and a bunch of wrenches zip tied to the bottem of our robot to ad weight
Last year we used a nice thick steel plate for some added ballast at the front of our robot. Helped prevent tipping, and brought us up to the weight limit. The plate started around 20lbs, but i think we ended up shaving off a little before competing.
hopefully we’re under again this year so we can use some more steel plates to offset the battery, which is looking to be on one side of the robot, making us a little lopsided!
We need a robot before we can worry about ballast… Woohoo crunch time!
Ballast should be a simple problem to solve. although i like the sledgehammer and wrenches one.
no point of using 2 batteries anyways just bring a few fully charged battery for back up if necessary the robot would definitely not use up all the power after 1 match. unless if the battery is really old.
