Transmitter battery in robot

Has anyone tried to use their transmitter battery for their robot. It goes at least 1/3 faster. Too bad you can’t us it in the competitions.

Becareful of what you plug in to the Vex Controller…
See Vex Motor Specs

Whiel using the 9.6v battery was a risk it was well worth it the robot was much faster but we did not run it long enough to find out the total run time.

My Hero 2007 Robot dances like Fred Astaire using the Vex 9.6 Volt rechargeable battery.

My Hero 2007 Robot dances like Fred Astaire using the Vex 9.6 Volt rechargeable battery.

okay…

i try not to do that, since the microcontroller might get damaged with the increase of power.

Yeah, sounds like you’re playing with fire with that one. Might work for a while, but no guarantees… You’d think Vex engineers would’ve made separate plugs for each, then again the powerpack would be more complicated, make it a little more complicated… maybe they just assumed we’d figure it out :slight_smile:

The microcontroller shows no signs of damage and the robot is much faster, we have one microcontroller dedicated to that battery so should there be damage we wouldn’t have used it on all of our microcontrollers.

Over your dead micro controller

One of my mentors did that and I don’t think he even realised the different voltages but his robot never showed any signs of damage.

that’s what I’m sayin’

The reason they didn’t do that, was because they thought that no one would risk their $150 Micro Controller.:rolleyes:

The specs state the controller will take 6-9 volts. I am sure there is some tolerance built in, and 9.6 is an average voltage with a full charge it may be more.

9.6 is about 7% over the recomended specs, that is a little to much for me to risk a $150.

I don’t know if you guys have looked on ebay any time soon, but those microcontrollers are going for alot cheaper

Yeah, I just noticed that the plugs are the same size today before reading this(I accidentally left my rechargeable on so it’s dead right now) and I was wondering if it would work. B.T.W. Radioshack has $100 VEX starter kits, it’s hard to find them anymore though.:frowning:

Looks like the regulator inside the controller can handle an input of 24 volts or so, so I would guess that you could put that much voltage on the controller without damaging it, as long as you didn’t pull a lot of current out of the analog or digital connectors, which are supplied with 5v from the regulator.

On the other hand, the battery voltage gets applied directly to the motor ports without going through the regulator, so a high battery voltage could stress the motors or servos.

I did that once too. my motors got ionized and attracted all the dust in the kitin. it took some time to clean up. dont do it.

no way:eek::eek::eek: wow…

you can use the transmitter batt in the robot or vise-versa both can take the voltage and current of the other, dont worry

I chose a more conservative approach to stay within specs, but get a bit of a boost in power. On e-bay you can find 8.4V battery packs for model cars that have the same connector on them and plug in fine.

They give the advantage of a +1.2V boost, but stay within the controller specifications. I know others have stated 9.6V is fine and likely it is, but I like to stay within stated specs on projects because burning something up just isn’t fun due to downtime and cost.

The downside to this is that you need a flexible charger. I am not sure if the Vex charger can handle 8.4V battery packs. Many hobby chargers are flexible from 6V to 12V, so you’d be fine if you have one of those.

Oh, the packs are also 2000mah NiCads so they last long and provide lots of current for 4wd robots. The NiMh last longer, but due to internal resistance they produce less current & power for the 4wd set-ups. You can see this if you ever run your robot on 7.2V NiCd vs. 7.2V NiMh.