Legality of Drawer Slides
 

Our team is planning to use some heavy-duty drawer slides for our lift. I see no reason why this wouldn't be legal, and I thought it wasn't really Q&A worthy. But it is so important for our design right now that I thought it was worth asking.

Re: Legality of Drawer Slides
 

The only restrictions would be the same that apply to any COTS part:

R10

No individual, non-KOP item shall have a value that exceeds $400 USD. The total cost of COMPONENTS purchased in bulk may exceed $400 USD as long as the cost of an individual COMPONENT does not exceed $400 USD.

Re: Legality of Drawer Slides
 

I figured it would be ok, I just thought if for some reason we found out we can't use them at competition we would be in trouble big time.

Re: Legality of Drawer Slides
 

You should Q/A it then. No one here can answer yes or no in an official capacity and if you're concerned it doesn't hurt to ask.

Personally I think drawer slides are a great idea if heavier than some solutions. They're smooth and can be very strong. Of course if you do manage to break one there will be ball bearings all over the field.

Re: Legality of Drawer Slides
 

Though, the GDC will probably answer along the lines of "we can't pre-inspect robots / comment on specific designs".

Basically, it's COTS, not overly expensive, not hazardous, not explicitly disallowed ... legal. (and it's not really that different from what comes in the IGUS bag, other than being possibly more useful)

Re: Legality of Drawer Slides
 

I worked a lot with drawer slides on our 2011 robot. Assuming they are legal (as several people have said that they should be) please be careful about which ones you use. Drawer slides are only designed to take a load in a very specific direction and will bind up and break if the load comes from somewhere else. Check first which way they are supposed to be mounted.