Hello, my teams recently went to a competition in Joplin, Missouri and we were told that we couldn’t use our Tenergy batteries that were 7.2 volts and 3000 mAh, which are identical specs to Vex batteries. Attached is a photo of the battery we were using. Is there any real reason that we must use Vex batteries rather than identical Tenergy batteries other than them making more money off of their products? [attachment:56a3a61cd84eb]
The explanation i have seen before is that they cannot guarantee that ‘off-brand’ batteries are identical and are therefore not allowed.
Well yes. I understand that but, we are using Tenergy. It is top of the line and the packaging is see through. There is no way that anyone wouldn’t know that they were identical other than the missing blue jacket with “Vex” printed on it.
This is a question for the Q&A, but i believe the rule is that they must be identical, so the lack of jacket might be an issue. Again, ask in the Q&A to be certain. Personanlly i think they should be allowed (although this may oprn many doors to cheating, which might make me oppose it).
Well this could mean that they are higher quality than VEX batteries. Chargers and batteries must be VEX brand to be legal for use in VEX Nothing But Net.
VRC events need to be run by people with minimal experience. You can’t count on your volunteers knowing more than your competitors, and you can’t count on them knowing enough to be able to tell if a battery has been tampered with. Someone could take a 5000 mAh RC battery and stick a new label on it to make it look like it was 3000 mAh. Someone could take six 1.5V cells and make a 9v battery that looked like a 7.2v one. Many volunteers wouldn’t be able to tell if a non-standard battery was within spec or not.
There’s also more to a battery than the voltage and energy capacity specifications. The GDC doesn’t want to start an arms race where teams have to shop around for fancy batteries to be competitive.
A bit off topic but our volunteers today didn’t realize that their was an unofficial ball on the field at our tournament, if one of the teams really wanted to they could have put it in because they knew it would work with their launcher.