Hi all,
Now that we can all use enough batteries to run our power hungry beasts, I would like to know which batteries are legal.
We have a real mish-mash of batteries in our collection. Between buying batteries for practice robots to the OCCRA competition to multiple years of being in FIRST, our battery collection is all a mess.
I literally don’t know for sure which batteries are the ones from 2001.
To further complicate things, FIRST’s message mentions “Exide or Yuasa” We have both in our collection, but again, I am not sure which were legal in 2001.
The batteries from this year I think all say “Powerlift” across the front and I THINK they say 18AH somwhere on them – we shipped ours so I don’t have access to them right now.
I think that FIRST must have shipped a variety of batteries (Exides and Yuasas?) last year.
If folks would upload pictures of the batteries they got from FIRST this year and last year, I think it would help folks to know what batteries are acceptable.
Help please.
Joe J.
Would you beleive it if I said they were all the same company?
Best I can tell, Exide bought/merged with Yuasa a year or two ago, and recently became PowerWare. It would not suprise me if FIRST didn’t distribute both Yuasa and Exide batteries in the past (quite possibly in the same year), although only other people can confirm that.
From the Robot Appendix G-60
Exide 12V 17.2 Ah model NP18-12B
FIRST Reply #851
> Can we use different brand batteries other than exide?
A) The only batteries you can use on the robot are the exide
battery from this year’s kit of parts or the Yuasa battery from last
year’s kit.
We had a similar problem. We could tell which batteries were the 2002 batteries (because they say “Powerlift” or something on them), and we knew which batteries were not from FIRST, but our 2000 and 2001 batteries look identical! It probably doesn’t matter, but does anyone know what (if any) difference there is between the 2000 and 2001 batteries?
i think in the very very back of the manual, on the back of the last page, there is a picture of this years battery
The pictures in the manual don’t look like our batteries.
I am sure that our batteries said “PowerLift” on a diagonal in big letters.
No picture in the manual matches my recollection of the batteries we got in the kit this year.
Joe J.
Our newest ones are the “powerlift” like yours, Dr. Joe. Those are definitely the 2002 batteries.
I have just gotten a private message that the batteries in question say “Powerfit” not “PowerLift” as I thought.
I HATE being dyslexic. Ah well, I don’t suppose I am going to grow out of it at this point so I may as well get used to it 
Cleveland or Bust!
Go Chiefs!
Joe J.