The connectors on our battery have become extremely difficult to disconnect. We tried adding little "hooks to grab on to get a better finger position, but they just made it more difficult.
Any suggestions on how to make the batteries easier to disconnect?
dielectric grease
One of our students came up with a device that made separating the battery connectors easier. It looked like a nut cracker but had two pins, one on each arm, not far from the pivot. The pins were inserted into the small through-holes in the mated connector pair with one pin in each connector. Opening the two arms separated the connector with about a 3:1 leverage advantage.
The tool has since gone missing but the connectors have loosened up enough to be separated by mere mortal hands (barely).
Check the pins in the connectors. Bent and warped pins are harder to disconnect. We have a few like this in our inventory and I’m thinking about cutting them off and crimping on new pins.
Anderson’s use spring tension to push two flat contacts together. This ensures that you have a solid connection which can carry the requisite current and not fail on you. As a result, it takes about 15lbs of force to pull them apart. A solution to make it a bit easier is to mount the robot side of you connector to a rigid surface, not just leave it dangling.
An easy way to separate these connectors is to grasp one side in each hand and bend the connection in the plane of the connector such that one terminal pulls apart before the other terminal. This gives you half the force to separate that both contacts together. It will take a little practice but it does work.
Another method is to take a piece of 1/8" nylon rope (or larger) and thread and tie it through the open holes in the connector. This will give a larger pulling area for smaller hands. This method is often employed in UPS batteries that use the same series of connector.
As pointed out by Bart above, the spring tension and pin alignment is part of the mechanism that allows these connectors to meet current and series resistance specs. Do not make changes in either. Local heating, connector damage and melted components may result. The inspection staff at events will send me a few pictures of connectors that are damaged in this way every year.
I’m trying to visualize this and think it’s the following:
Is this correct?
Yes, this is how we separate them. It will disengage one contact at a time. Of course, you should be pulling the two housings apart continuously as you do this.
Sounds like the makings of a great product to sell to FRC teams… just like the LEGO Brick Separator is for those of us with no fingernails to speak of (and love LEGO). IDK - may be a good way to subsidize the costs of an FRC season.
I notice that many of the pink-colored SB-50 connector assemblies in the Kit of Parts the past two years have that problem. The ones I’ve looked at came with the “high-detent” connectors that are designed to be difficult to disconnect. Put two of them together and it’s nearly impossible to separate them without applying force that almost seems to risk breaking them.
We avoid using those connectors. If necessary, we would put one on a battery, but never on a robot or charger. We rely on other means to keep the connectors from coming loose during a robot match.