Just wondering, what do you guys use to hold batteries?
We use the plastic battery clips with rubber bands to hold the battery tight.
The battery holders VEX sells work very well. I’d say they’re worth the purchase. I use 2 per battery.
While it adds somewhat unnecessary weight, last year we built battery holders out of wide c-channels and standoffs. Although this could be considered fairly counterproductive, it can be very useful if you have a robot that needs more weight on it to minimize its recoil
We use two of the VEX battery holders for each battery.
VEX makes metal brackets that are generally used to create a rack and pinion system with the linear slide, we found they are the perfect size to hold batteries
One of our kids made the coolest battery holder using the hinges and rubber bands. He made it before the plastic ones came out and was great for quickly changing the batteries. Very cool!
That battery holder is awesome, and extremely creative!
I like this. Very creative.
Would 3d printing a battery holder be considered decoration or a functional piece?
Probably functional, unfortunately. I really wish we got to use 3D printers for stuff like this. It’s not like it would pose any advantage; it would just look much cooler than the simple black clips as well as giving us an opportunity to get experience with 3D printers.
The cable tie style battery holders from VEX we found to be very hopeless as the cable tie functionality often breaks after repetitive use.
We found the battery clips much easier to use than the straps, only they do not hold the batteries in well if the batteries are mounted upright. As had to put standoffs at the bottom of our clips to keep the battery from sliding out. We did not use cable ties to hold ours in and after falling off the top of a lift at worlds, and rolling twice then landing on our head, they stayed in fine.
This is amazing! It looks like it is really efficient for changing batteries.
As long as we’re talking batteries, I’ll throw in one more thing: we always use the battery extension cables on all our teams’ robots to save the battery connector on the cortex. Plug it into the cortex once and leave it alone. We learned that lesson on that one at World’s a couple years ago when we had a brick from a loose cortex battery connector.
As long as we’re talking batteries, I’ll throw in one more thing: we always use the battery extension cables on all our teams’ robots to save the battery connector on the cortex. Plug it into the cortex once and leave it alone. We learned that lesson on that one at World’s a couple years ago when we had a brick from a loose cortex battery connector.
Second what @kmmohn said.
Also, using the battery connectors allows you to reposition the battery location away from the cortex. This can speed up match prep, because one person can change batteries on one side of the robot, while the other person downloads the right program or whatever. Or, you can move the batteries around to achieve a better weight distribution so that you drive faster/don’t tip.
Some of these look pretty cool!