How to Treat a Battery
Welcome to programming practical skills. One of the most important things about being an effective programmer is having the additional skills that help you troubleshoot robots and keep them healthy.
One of the most important things is battery health. Since you just completed a task on batteries, now is a great time to learn about this skill.
In Our Robotics Competition
We use large, 12-volt batteries weighing about 13 pounds. Every robot needs one, and is limited to only one battery.
Knowing When a Battery Is Ready for Use
In our shop, we have battery chargers in the electrical room.
For offseason use, we will stick to using any battery marked as 2025. These batteries are from last year, and because we have treated them well, they have lasted us over a year of use!
This lets us have a large number of batteries available for programming testing and practice use, keeping our competition-year batteries in top shape.
Battery Usage Limits
When we use a battery on a robot, it’s important to limit it to no more than:
- 5 minutes of competition-robot use
- 10 minutes of test-chassis use
- 15 minutes of test-board use
Even if you aren’t actively using a battery, leaving it connected and powering any robot configuration for too long while idle can decrease battery health.
This is one of the most important things to remember when keeping batteries healthy.
If you leave the room, turn the robot off!
If you don’t know how to turn a robot on and off, ask for help—we can teach you.
If you are working with a powered robot, keep track of time and switch to a new battery appropriately!
After Using a Battery
If you use up a battery, return it to the electrical room, but don’t plug it in yet.
You should give a used battery about 10 minutes to idle before plugging it back into a charger.
This is yet another step to ensure battery health stays high!
⚠️ Important Battery Warning
If you ever see a battery below ~12 volts while idle, switch it out!
Don’t let a battery idle lower than this, even if you have not used it up to its theoretical time limit, as it will harm battery health.