Teams using strategy to go under the low portion of the bridge (north wall) may benefit from using AA batteries because the lithium rechargeable battery pack adds about a 1/4" in height to the NXT brick. Charlie ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Barrett" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 9:58 AM Subject: [VADCFLL-L] A note on rechargeable batteries > Everyone, > Just a heads up here. Over the past two weeks, the pair of robots we use > have started to exhibit some strange behavior. For example, turns were > becoming increasingly inconsistent and the robot would sometimes move in > jerky movements at slow speeds. The robots are 3 and 4 years old and > initially we thought it might be a motor problem or possibly the new NXT > software. Our teenage mentor suggested that the Lithium Ion batteries may > be going bad. While we were initially skeptical, since both batteries > showed full charges, we replaced the rechargeable batteries with alkaline > batteries and the robots were back to their "normal" selves. Aha! > > The lesson here is if you're using a robot with a rechargeable battery > that is a few years old and you see some strange behavior, try swapping > out the rechargeable with a new set of batteries. It could save you and > your team from going mad. > > John > > -- > > John J. Barrett > Industrial Medium, Inc. > 1616 Anderson Road > McLean, VA 22102 > > (c) 703-231-5094 > (p) 703-286-0818 > (f) 703-286-0888 > > http://www.industrialmedium.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE your settings, please visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-l.html and select "Join or leave the list". -- VADCFLL administrative announcements are sent via VADCFLL-ADMIN-L. Visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-admin-l.html to subscribe.