Hi all, our team is looking to change up how we organize our batteries during the offseason.
It would be great if people could share pictures of your team’s battery cart, what you like/dislike about it, improvements, cautions, etc. so we can get some inspiration.
Thank you!
Here is a front photo of ours, I can’t find one of the back where the chargers are. It doesn’t have wheels mounted to it, we use a furniture dolly to move it around.
Here’s our “battery” cart. As you can see, it holds quite a bit more than batteries. Space for 12 batteries in the drawers on the left, top drawer for drill battery chargers. The rest of the cart has slots for small parts organizers (seen in second picture). 14 large organizers and 9 small ones. These carry everything from bolts, bearings, pneumatic fittings, and just about anything else. The cart also is wired electrically, offering us a place to power other items as well.
We built it to match the height of our tool cart and forms a major part of our work area in the pit at competitions.
Pros:
Cons:
Here is a picture and link of the 33 battery cart. The team made a one-day build video going step by step on how to build it, as well as created a PDF doc with instructions and all the drawings needed to make each part.
2767 battery cart.
Designed to fit between the tool boxes. Added volt/amp meters.
Frankly, I like the vertical stack/Dolly design like 33s. Batteries are heavy and a dolly design seems to lend itself to moving the batteries around quickly and safely and it’s floor footprint is minimal. Batteries are easy to get at without a bunch of fuss.
Recommend at least 12 slots. You don’t want to get caught up in elims realizing, all the sudden, the 4 batteries you brought won’t be charged in time to get you to the end or that the end comes when the 4th battery goes dead.
Purely aesthetic wise, this is very good looking.
For Team 696, I built a 12-station battery cart in 2016 using two AutoMeter BusPro-660 chargers.
These chargers have an extra outlet wired in to plug in another charger, and each charger has 6 channels of AGM optimized 5-Amp charging with prominent red and green lights. There are no buttons or controls of any sort, which was a design spec we made mandatory for our battery charging setup. These chargers simply just work. When designing this cart in 2016, I researched literally every available battery charger on the market, until I reached the end of the internet. This is the charger we settled on. The DualPro RS3 triple-bay black and green charger was also a strong contender, but we would have needed four of those, and would have needed additional distribution (power strip) for the 120V supply to them. On the AutoMeter chargers in this cart, the status lights are spaced apart similar to how the batteries are spaced apart, so it is very easy to see what the status of any particular battery is, without playing the “follow the wire” or “see what happens when we unplug this one” game. This is a problem you have with the DualPro RS3, in it not always being immediately obvious which indicator light goes to which charging output. Aside from whatever the lights say, we follow a strict protocol of qualifying all batteries that go into the cart to competition, and then using them in order. First match gets battery number 1. Second match we play gets battery number 2, so on and so forth. This ensures even wear across the batteries and ensures that we rarely ever play the same battery twice in one day. We typically have 8 competition batteries and 4 practice batteries. So, batteries 9 through 12 are reserved for testing in the pits, compressing air tanks prior to matches, and practice field use; they are never used in competition matches. We typically populate slots 9 through 12 with KOP batteries, which are lower performing than the MK batteries we use for competition matches.
The cart is a rugged powder coated welded steel frame with heavy-duty genuine Colson casters (two fixed, two swivel with brakes) and mounted SB50 housings. This cart has traveled all over the country with us between Houston, Arizona, Las Vegas, and up and down California, through many rough parking lots and driveway thresholds. It has been in and out of our trailer countless times through 5 seasons, and we’ve never had an issue.
We usually wrap it with a moving blanked and stretch wrap prior to trailer transport. Due to the total weight of approximately 300lbs, we train students in special handling procedures for this cart. They know if they manage to tip it over, they will be looking for a new team to join. We’ve never tipped it. One competent student can handle this cart on flat ground. We assign two students to handle the cart on inclines.
With all that said, this cart is not for everyone. It’s about a $2500 cart. But, it has served us well.
If I were building a new charging setup today, and I was okay with a 4-Amp rate, I would strongly consider a bunch of this charger. I’m not fond of the buttons, but it does default to 12V lead acid charging, and the buttons to require a hold to change modes. So, you’ll never need to use the buttons.
Ours is old, so rather crude, but we can hold 11 batteries, and charge 8 of them at a time.
Five on the bottom, four on the middle row, and two on the back, behind the chargers.
So far, all the battery leads are the same length (red vs black). Do you design your robots around this?
Here’s a great example of when 1665 had it’s battery leads to the side. (not pictured, velcro to secure the battery)
Yes I know, TERRIBLE design practice. Cube control vs battery tray. We didn’t think of the placings for the electronics. Could barely clear the 15 degree incline with the motors on the bottom of the elevators.
And since our battery leads were like that already, here’s our 2019.
We’ve been using the same version since the team started in 2016 and with my previous team since about 2010. It carries 4 batteries, a triple charger, extension cords, portable power tools etc. We take two to competitions and one for outreach events. The doors are on opposite sides and fold back out of the way. The top makes a convenient height work surface. It has 4" Colson wheels at the back and swivel casters on the front so it can be moved on 4 or 2 wheels. The bottom, back and top edges are faced with 1/8 x 3/4 aluminum which makes it a lot easier to drag up stairs or into our trailer. There’s a 1" diameter full width bar on the back which functions as a handle. There’s a power bar mounted in each. Our pit setup includes a heavy duty Y shaped wiring harness that runs across the back and up each side of the pit. There’s an inline receptacle box conveniently placed so that both powers bars can be plugged in. Detailed construction instructions are available on request. 
I can’t find a picture of our cart but it is made out of 8020 and sheet metal with a sealed wooden top so that it can also be a chair in the pit
Here is our first battery cart. We now use it to carry batteries from one place to the next because of reasons. It had two chargers (seen in our next battery cart).
We then moved on to this bad boy. 12 stations, but it is cumbersome. We do plan on rewiring it so we can leave it near our field space (which is quite a distance from our shop). It has 75 lbs of weights in its underbelly to keep it upright.
Our Super Pit (still not done…) now has the battery charging built into the frame - I think this one will be used for the long term.
This way we can have everything field side and not have to run back to the pit for fresh batteries.
And here is our battery charging station that we will be using for sponsor visits, parades, and general outreach events. It will be able to carry upwards of 6 batteries, but only charging 4 at a time.
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