Quote Originally Posted by craig_colliass
being reliant on a particular company dose seem a little short on options for the future.
The reality is though that's kinda what robots have been doing since it all started in one form or another if you want to be at the top of your game.

For SLA's you either ran a Hawker Genesis 13Ah or 16Ah or settled for something so inferior in current delivery it gave a massive disadvantage. Then for NiCads by far the best option was the Sanyo N3000CR cell (the yellow C-size cell that we all know and love). And for LiFePO4 it has be A123 who have produced by far the most powerful usable cell for robots.

So it's nothing new that the best option is always a 'single' option for any given chemistry, what's unique is that we've never been in a position before where we've not been able to adopt the 'next' battery technology, so we suddenly find ourselves at a development stall.

Just because a battery has the same 'Chemistry' as another brand, that doesn't make it the same battery - for example here is a LiFePO4 battery, 12v 6Ah, in theory we could use these to replace the packs we have in Storm II

http://www.batteryspace.com/Powerizer-L ... e-SLA.aspx

.... except then you realise the max discharge is only 12 amp MAX !! (and yes I realise there are other LeFePO4 packs out there before the pedants start, I'm just making a point that same chemistry does not the same battery make !).

So yes, what we do is aligned to A123's as the most sutiable implementation of a battery chemistry. If they risk not being available any more, I think that unless we want to (for the first time in our history) take a step back in development, we need to continue to evolve and maybe this should be used as a catalyst for that to happen. Storm II pushes the A123's to their limits and with NiCads now illegal our only option if the A123's needed replacing at the moment would be LiPo's !

One of the FRA's job is to ensure the safe adoption of new technology, it has been running 'tests' for over a year with Big Nipper, and one would expect the purpose of agreeing to run a test, was to have outcomes from the test, and then take actions based on those outputs - or it serves no purpose !