Here's a word about batteries:
Uh... Ok, so that's really boring. I'll tell you about a bird in our lab. Yesterday, I was at work calibrating some equipment, and I heard something that sounded like a squirrel running around on top of the ceiling tiles in our lab. Since wildlife is pretty prevalent in the Federal Center, I paid little attention to it until all of a sudden, a bird appeared behind me. I'm not sure what it was. It was about the size of a Robbin, but was black and was equip with a seed beak. It flew around for a while, but seemed a little tired. Our group tech ended up chasing the bird around for a while, eventually cornered it, and reached out and grabbed it. Typical bird. If you hold them, they do this weird thing that makes them look like they're going to die in your hand. They sit there perfectly still, their beaks hanging open, and panting wildly. It's as if they're saying their last prayers before being eaten alive :-) Birds are so dumb. They're fiercely afraid of people.
Anyway, back to batteries. The first thing you should know is what Volts and Amps are. If you think of a garden hose, Volts are how hard the water is pushing (pressure), and Amps indicates how much water is coming out of the hose. Batteries "hold" different amounts of power, that is, they can "push" different amounts of water out. A "AA" battery, while it has the same voltage as a "D" battery, won't last nearly as long as a "D" battery. Battery capacities are rated in Amp-hours, or "Ah" for short. (Often, it's mAh meaning "milli-Amp-hours.") Anyway, I have a 12Ah battery for my robot which means that if you hooked it up to something that used 12 Amps, it would last one hour. Conversely, if you were to hook it up to something that used 1 Amp, it would last 12 hours.
There are different types of batteries chemistries. The kind you have in your car is called a "lead-acid" battery because it's filled with Lead plates and H2SO4 (Sulfuric acid.) The type of battery I have on my robot is a variation on a lead-acid battery called a sealed-lead-acid or a gel cell. The only difference is that the acid is turned into a gel so it won't run out all over the place if you dump it upside-down. The advantage to these types of batteries is 1) They're relatively cheap 2) They're rechargeable 3) They tend to have a lot of volts and amps 4) They are "hardy" batteries meaning they can be mistreated with little ill effect. The disadvantage is 1) They're heavy 2) Lead-Acid batteries, if not properly maintained, only last a few years.
I've had my robot batteries for quite a while, so I decided to test them to see if I needed to replace them. I found that they're now 7Ah instead of 12, but considering the fact my robot uses anywhere from 1/2 an Amp to 6 Amps, that should be plenty long enough.
There, how was that for a really long, boring post?
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4 comments:
Ummm.... Do I have to read it? It's long, pictureless, and even you said it was long and boring. :P That automatically classifies it as ummm... I'm not sure what to call it... um.... a long boring post?
Okay, fine, I read it... but still... NO PICTURES :'-(
You mean... you're not using nickel cadmium batteries? :D (Sorry for the nerd joke that isn't even funny(nor does it make sense))
AHAHAHAHAHA! Nickel cadmium batteries! AAHAHAHHAHHAA!
This post is 529 words long. Since a picture is worth 1000 words, you could have eliminated all the text and only would have had to post 1/2 a picture, and it would have had the same value.
ANYWAY! NiCd! BWAAAAA, HAAAA, HAA! Good one, Joe.
I actually have my old blog printed out and the original posts were that long... I guess either blogs have lost their glamour now that everyone has them or I've gotten really boring and have nothing to write about anymore. I'm leaning for both.
529 words, eh? Yeah... you're right, Sally. And... well... the post contents was just an excuse... I thought it was boring as I was writing it. :-)
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