Thursday, June 5

Rechargeable Batteries

I have always used rechargeable batteries in my NXT, and if you do or are planning to, here are some tests I did with 6 new Energizer 15 minute rechargeable batteries and a new LEGO NXT Rechargeable Battery Pack.


The test was this: Have two identical robots, one powered by LEGO and the other by Energizer, drive forward a certain distance and time themselves. The one with the shortest average time wins. Here are the results:







TestsLEGO's BatteryEnergizer's Batteries
Test 13.941 sec.4.119 sec.
Test 24.082 sec.3.978 sec.
Test 34.095 sec.4.163 sec.
Average Time4.039 sec.4.086

So, LEGO's battery pack supplies just slightly more power, but is more expensive.
If money is not an issue, get LEGO's battery, it has other advantages such as you can charge it while it's in the NXT. (Click it's image). If you don't have a big NXT budget, get Energizer's. They're better than one-use batteries.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

What Milliamp hours were the energizer batteries? and does the lego battery have milliamp hours listed on it somewhere?

NXTMonger said...

The Energizers were 2500 millamp hours and the lego battery pack was 1400 milliamp hours.

Anonymous said...

Surely you would need to do more than three tests to get an accurate result. If you try another three, you could get a totally different result.