Amazon.com selling GEARS?!?!

[Joe Johnson]

Hard to believe, but here it is (http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/ref=sd_allcatpop_biss/002-8824526-9424004?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=16310091). When I first looked at the page, I did a double take because I thought that I had gone to the Small Parts Inc website (http://www.smallparts.com/).

When I compared the two sites, I think that it was that both sites have a picture of a bundle of tubes that made me make the connection.

For what it's worth...

Joe J.

[Tytus Gerrish]

O-Rings? Oh, Yes!

thats awesome. whats next toysRus selling DeWalts?

[Steve Howland]

When I first looked at the page, I did a double take because I thought that I had gone to the Small Parts Inc website (http://www.smallparts.com/).

Can't blame you.
Ships from and sold by Small Parts, Inc..

[Rickertsen2]

thats crazy! How does amazon.com work? Is it really a single company or a central webpage with lots of companies selling different things on the backend? They sell EVERYTHING these days.

[Joe Johnson]

Can't blame you.

I should have dug around a bit more. All I knew when I went there was that it made my brain think "Small Parts Inc."

Then I saw the tubes and I assumed it was that. Now I know it was more than that.

Joe J.

[Brandon Martus]

thats crazy! How does amazon.com work? Is it really a single company or a central webpage with lots of companies selling different things on the backend? They sell EVERYTHING these days.
Target, Toys-R-Us, Barnes & Noble, and many other companies all have their inventory available on amazon.com .. I'm not sure of the exact details of the partnerships, though.

[Pat McCarthy]

Dang, I wish I would have known about this a month or so ago when I started my Physics II robot project. :p

[BrianBSL]

thats crazy! How does amazon.com work? Is it really a single company or a central webpage with lots of companies selling different things on the backend? They sell EVERYTHING these days.

Some stuff they ship out of their own warehouses, or drop-ship with their name on it. Each item page tells you where its coming from. This stuff says Ships from and sold by Small Parts, Inc., whereas other items that they sell say Ships from and sold by Amazon.com, and so on for various (hundreds maybe?) other companies they partner with. Only stuff they sell qualifies for shipping promotions (Free budget over $25, Amazon Prime). It can get quite annoying when you want to look for stuff that ships directly from them (I used to have an Amazon Prime membership (it was free for 3 months when I signed up for their Visa card)), I never found a way to only show their items.

[sanddrag]

The real question is what device was Dr. Joe thinking up that prompted him to go on a search for gears?

[Eric O]

It appears that the connection is more than just some Small Parts product sold on amazon. From the looks of it, this part of Amazon provides all of Small Parts products as well as a few items from many other companies. By clicking the 'Browse by Brands and Products' Links and checking Small Parts (http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/other/102-2370188-6747358?%5Fencoding=UTF8&letter=S&pickerToList=brandtextbin&rh=n%3A16310161) , you will see that they have 30,791 items on Amazon.



Hard to believe, but here it is (http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/ref=sd_allcatpop_biss/002-8824526-9424004?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=16310091). When I first looked at the page, I did a double take because I thought that I had gone to the Small Parts Inc website (http://www.smallparts.com/).

When I compared the two sites, I think that it was that both sites have a picture of a bundle of tubes that made me make the connection.

For what it's worth...

Joe J.

[Joe Johnson]

The real question is what device was Dr. Joe thinking up that prompted him to go on a search for gears?

I wish I had a good answer to that, but the real reason was that Makezine.com (another great favorite of mine).

Actually, today I was doing a more mundane tasks like implementing battery life tests for our robot, preparing help wanted flier for robot programmer (e-mail me if you are interested), etc. Pretty boring stuff compared to gearbox design, but small business folks have to do what needs to get done if they want to stay in business.

...back to work for me...

Joe J.

[patrickrd]

This is great... I just submitted a proposal to my company to consolidate all our hardware vendors by using amazon.com.

Too bad it's not april fool's day, they might think i'm serious.

[Andy Baker]

Amazon.com bought Small Parts, Inc. last fall.

This is an effort by Amazon.com to get into the business of selling parts to people like us... people who want to build robots, inventors, hobbyists, educators, engineers in industry. This is a result of Jeff Bezos being inspired by FIRST (and similar activities), I believe.

A big fan of Amazon.com,
Andy B.

[Joe Johnson]

Amazon.com bought Small Parts, Inc. last fall.

This is an effort by Amazon.com to get into the business of selling parts to people like us... people who want to build robots, inventors, hobbyists, educators, engineers in industry. This is a result of Jeff Bezos being inspired by FIRST (and similar activities), I believe.

A big fan of Amazon.com,
Andy B.

Do you think that Amazon's Mechanical Turk (http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/002-8824526-9424004?_encoding=UTF8&node=15879911&no=3435361&me=A36L942TSJ2AJA) will ever have tasks posted like "Find the robot from team X in these photos" or "Find the most exciting footage from these online matches"?

Maybe someday...

Joe J.

[Qbranch]

Gears are expensive. Why not make your own?

I'm figuring out how to do it on my CNC. Hopefully I'll have some pretty convincing gears by the end of the summer.

Plus, remember, once I figure out how to make gears, i can make them out of most any material i want (aluminum, titanium, UHMW, lexan :yikes: )

So i'll report back on CD sometime when i get a convincing gear and probably post a whitepaper and pictures on how to do it.

-Q

[sanddrag]

Gears are expensive. Why not make your own?

I'm figuring out how to do it on my CNC. Hopefully I'll have some pretty convincing gears by the end of the summer.

Plus, remember, once I figure out how to make gears, i can make them out of most any material i want (aluminum, titanium, UHMW, lexan :yikes: )

So i'll report back on CD sometime when i get a convincing gear and probably post a whitepaper and pictures on how to do it.

-Q
After I discovered how difficult and time consuming it is for the average hobbyist machinist to make a gear (and how complex a gear actually is) I gladly decided to purchase them.

This book (http://www.csupomona.edu/~ymreal/textbook.htm) has a good section on gear making. I wouldn't recommend buying the book, but if you can get your hands on it for an hour or so to read that section it would be worthwhile.

You have a CNC? That's cool. What kind?

How do you plan on cutting the gears? The only way I can imagine to do it on mill is to get some stock set up in a rotary 4th axis and get an involute gear cutter mounted on an arbor and come into it to make the cut and index it the proper amount for the next tooth and so on until you get all of them.