Here's a thought, why not make this for the hobbyweight class? They're easier to make then feather weights, cheaper, use the same electronics, stop people using insanly thick amour AND therfor make matches more interesting!

Also, these classes can be happily run of rc cars 7.2v nimh or nicads, which are about $30 and can be charged with a reasonably cheap charger! I think you could say "SLA, drill nicads or standard 7.2v rc car batteries allowed".
Just a thought, but as cataclysm is 7kg, and wayde whipped up a hobbyweight in a morning which could easily be run of your relay controler instead of the IBC, would be pretty fun! (you could also consider allowing 7.2v packs run in series for 14.4v.
http://www.hobbyco.com.au/product/show_item.php?plu=G024

http://www.hobbyco.com.au/product/show_item.php?plu=TRX7015
This ones only 19.95!
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YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Just a kwik question, would some of us verterans be able to compete in this low tech beginners class? I enjoy the high powered thrills of the open class, but some days I'd just like to sit back, relax and battle something simple where I know, it will be able to keep going all day, will only take 5-10mins to repair and I don't have to keep shoving 30amps in the battery continously just to make it into the next round.

So can some of us verterans play in an even field with the newcomers?
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quote:

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The original drill packs are inaffective unless you have lots of them (cost) . Once allowed - "Some" people will replace the original "drill" nicads with far more expensive versions and how do you control that ?.

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i use digitor 14.4 drill batteries untouched in my robots and i can get 2 batteries and a drill for $20 .......if you buy the drills you have the batteries so that seems logical .......i have run 4 cheap shit batteries for 26 battles and they are still wooping along .....as kkeerroos stated im all for it but dont complicate it ..........and as jake stated ...if you are going to use COMBAT robots as a draw card then overvolting must be allowed as its a huge learning curb in balance.....if you are going to only allow slow creeping bots that just bump each other then i suggest you dont even mention COMBAT and set up obstacle type arenas and other type events instead ........trust me i know what you are setting out to do but think about all the options it doesnt all need to be COMBAT
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Plan B ran quite well off 2 14.4V packs of 1200Mah drill nicads, with 2 7.2ah booster batteries for the weapons.

so i dont know where you are getting the idea that SLA's are so much better.
having seen the pile of dead SLA's glen has (man now that is a lot of boat anchors) our first set of drill nicads is still running fine.
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

I don't know why a lot of people have problems with there SLA batteries We've had the same 4 Doss SLA 7amps since RoboWars 1 and we've still got them and they are still holding over 12.8v. Maybe it's the way your charging them, I remember Glen enjoying the 15min fast charge on his 2.3 SLA at robowars 2 and the kick ass battle following it after we charged his batteries on our 2 x 5.4amp non-regulatored chargers.

We find the SLA's are better because they can source the amperage better then drill packs. T2M had 4 drill packs in it and lasted longer on a piar of 2.2 amp SLA's for around the same weight.

The drill packs I find are pretty schit house, I would prefer a DOSS SLA anyday over them, but if your talking decent NiCD/NiMH, I'll agree that they ware wayyyyyy better.
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I understand the SLA vs NiCd issue is relevant to this thread, and its important we hash out the ground rules, but lets not degenerate into a "I find NiCd's to be better because..." vs "I find SLA's to be better because..." battle.

I think there are some Valid points on both sides,

The main issue I have with NiCd's is that to charge them effectively you either need a pretty wizzy ($$) charger like a Triton or similair, or be very careful in monitoring their temperature and have a fairly good understanding of electronics and how to feed current into them etc.

Gary amassed a huge collection of drill batteries and fluffed around with Omni's and so on, but it was only once we went for Tritons that they really started to become useful..

an SLA can be thrown on a (regulated) 12v supply and just soak up current and its a lot harder to over charge them, and the chargers are cheaper.

If someone can mention a cheap effective way of slamming power back into drill packs with sufficient speed to make them useable at a competition (where a 4hr charge time doesnt quite cut it), then I'd agree that they would be worth alowing (seeing as how you get them free with the drills anyway).
No Jaycar cells, RC Packs, Battlepacks or anything. Drill Batteries only though.

Any suggestions there ?
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Competitors buying two drills would get two chargers and four batteries. The roboteer could start charging their first battery as soon as the battery is cool enough after they finish their first fight.
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So even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems

i can get 2 battles per set of standard drill batteries not modified or anything just out of the box i have 4 charged per robot at the start of a days competition ......so after 2 battles i change them and charge .....it takes around 3 hours or so and i then have 2 charged batteries ready to go when the others are flat ....not rocket science
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Drill batteries could be used makeing the provision that they are left in their origional containers unmodified. That way the drill conector could be hacked in a way that you just clip you battery into your robot and just pull it out to fit in its origional charger base to recharge .If any one feels that some one has cheated the rules and repacked them with super duper bateries then they make a complaint to the organiser and get a scrutineer to open the suspect battery case ...iff they dont see the origional spot welded metal tabs then the battery isnt allowed to be used ....i doubt any one would go to all the trouble to get expensive batteries spot welded to fit in an origional battery case . I think this is exactly how Chriss john uses his ( give me a kick if im wrong Criss)

why mandate they be kept in their origional case?
they are big and ugly and the connectors are pretty sucky as chris found out.
dirodium or whatever his name is unpacked his as did the robort guys.
no serious battery is going to be packed in paper.
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

TDT - i think its safe to assume that anyone can compete in BotBash as long as the bot they enter falls into the competition guidlines. I would encourage the expereinced builders to enter, just to show the newcomers that its both accepted and not outdated as soon as you can build destructive robots. Also, the more veterans that come to the meets the better because there will be a LOT of questions to be answered from new builders/ prospective builders.

Even if a few of the regular teams wanted to join together in Botbash and create something that you can all share the construction/driving of.. kinda show the newbies that its not ALL about competing against eachtoher.

However, i think that possibly the weight of the Botbash class needs to be lowered a small amount.. I mean if you take a lot of the featherweights in competition now and remove their active weapon, most people will use that weight to pile on more armor. I dont know if the crowd wants to see a turtle fight..

PLUS - when the bot owner decides to move up the regular featherweights, they wont have to remove anything from the bot, just design an active weapon to fill up the difference. Does this sound fair?

that sounds fair to me,

a basic robot base wouldnt weigh any more than 9kg odd, i know all of my robots have weighed in around that area and thats with pretty decent armour like 6mm aluminium etc,

so i guess yeah my building follows that logic by just throwing armour onto it to bring it up to weight.
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I was refering to keep the drill batteries unmodified so that there can be no unfair advantage useing them .. in any case i am just trying to come up with reasonable suggestions to allow then as they are cheap ...
I personaly dont like nicads and use sla's in all my bots ive never had any probs with them except for the slide on conectors comeing off.