EvoSapien.com

[denodan]

There are two reasons not to use recharable battieries.

1. Since recharable batteries are lighter will make your robot more unstable and more prone to falling over. Seems alkines are recommended due to the extra wieght and it's design was built around using alkines due to their extra weight. He needs the right kind of balance to and weight to stop falling, or minize it anyway.

I have notice while turning he is on the point of balance, just and can still fall even with the recommended batteries, but with rechargables is a lot more prone to falling as they don't weight enough.

2. If your motors jam, or under more strain, it's possible to burn out your motors, due to the way rechargables work and release their power etc, but if you go to the real robots forums etc it is explained why this can happen.

The chance maybe not great of course, but under strain, like his motors are at times will generate more heat and more likely to burn his motors out, or one anyway.

3. Rechangables are 1.2, whereas ordanry batteries are 1.5, so with 6 D sized batteries your going to notice he runs more sluggish and slower as he was not designed to run on rechargables so the drop in power is not taken into consideration. His brain etc will also not respond as well as ordinary batteries due to them only being 1.2. A 3/4 of a volt in power difference.

If you don't want to risk damaging or burning out any of your motors don't ever use recharables. All I can say is using them your taking a big risk.

Sorry I posted this twice as I thought this needed a new topic rather then a reply to post.

[pcphobic]

Whoah!!! I better think twice of getting rechargeables then. It's a good thing that in my country, it's hard to find recahrgeable D cells.

[knitsu]

nothing that adding a Fuse to the batteries couldnt fix

not to meantion adding extra weight on the feet to make up for the lost weight , as rechargable batteries weight less

[TalonClaw]

Let's hope that one of the features of RS V3 will be rechargablity.

[jdistler]

Interesting...

Page O5 of the V2 manual says Alkalines are "recommended" but Page O6 has lots of comments that imply that there is nothing wrong with using Rechargeables:

"Remove rechargeable batteries from the toy before recharging them."
"Rechargeable batteries are only to be charged under adult supervision"
etc.

Well designed electronics using motors usually have current limiting as part of the circuit (but with my most recent experience with the V2 I wouldn't be so sure).

Regarding the lower voltage of rechargeables making the V2 sluggish...

Voltage isn't the only important factor for driving a motor. While the NiCad or NiMH battery may have a lower voltage it will be able to provide more current to the motors due to the lower internal resistance of the battery.

[sprocket2cog]

Ive used rechargable batts in everthing for yrs now and have never burnt out anything yet, except the batteries themselves.
The risk cant be that great or they would never have made it to the consumer.
The biggest issue is the reduced weight, but it looks like most of this can be adressed by adding weights.
Im going to be running it exclusivly on Nimh Dcells as of next month ($60 worth so need time to save ) and ill post anything about its motors dieing if they do.
It seems that the fact that the rechargables at 1.2v is already addressing the issue of the extra problems of nicads etc, or not?