Our Small Parts Experience, to all TEAMS
 

To all the teams out there:

I just want you all to know how hassling it was to deal with Small Parts this year.

Firstly, it's only the 2nd week, and they're out of stock on all the sprockets we were asking for. We had to change design twice because they would run out after we would order it. Worse, they would ship us 8 of the 20 sprockets we asked for. What do we do with 8 sprockets if the rest are not coming in a week? Most of their sprockets are already out of stock.

The second time I ordered, I asked for a larger toothed sprocket. I asked how many they had, and they said 70+. I then ordered 20, and got my 8. It was blamed on other other orders that came before mine. Awesome, tell that to my work calendar and timeline. Delays, delays, delays...

Well, after I spoke to several representatives, they did manage to find me replacements and did give me a discount on overnight shipping. I expected it to be free considering they promised me twice that I would receive the full number of sprockets.

SPI was definitely unprepared this year for 900 teams or so. Both with their inventory and perhaps their efficiency and accuracy as well. They had blamed it on FIRST and said that they are NOT the official sponsor anymore or something like that. In any case, they should have expected a surge of orders. Perhaps FIRST could have given them a heads up as well?

So for all you teams who are still in design phase, I highly suggest you take into consideration their dwindling inventories. Go call them and ask how many they have left -- or when they expect the next shipment to arrive.

And by all means, get your sprockets somewhere else. Or ask them how many more they have left.

-anton abaya
Rambots, #419

Re: Our Small Parts Experience, to all TEAMS
 

Thanks for the heads-up....we just placed an order this morning, and i am not sure how that will come out.

I am very interested in what other teams experience because being a rookie team, I expect we will be lightly behind the curve as far as schedule, and hang-ups like this could be critical.

Thanks for sensitizing people to a potential problem.

-Quentin :(

We are also on the wait for sprockets from SPI". We were told 2 weeks :eek: back order for the larger tooth sprockets.... Hmmm, I wonder who got them all....

:rolleyes:

a list of online suppliers
 

Well, maybe we can now take this opportunity to put together a list of online stores team's have been using to buy gears and sprockets, or whatever is on the additional hardware list.

I know most people know about this place already, as especially the engineers, but I will post this anyway.

http://www.mcmaster.com/

They almost have everything you will ever need for hardwares. And you can tell them to ship them to you overnight. And they seems to never run out of stocks.

Since FIRST allow us to buy any amount of sprockets/gears at any place, we should really take advantage of that, especially a lot of teams are just take the easy way out and get from small parts.

Another place to get things is MSC industrial Supply Co.

www.mscdirect.com


As long as we order before 4pm we get it by 9am the next day. without the high price.


We have almost all of our stock so go ahead and buy buy buy

Another great source is Berg
http://www.wmberg.com

I posted this to another thread, but it may be useful here as well. We have put together an index of useful metal working-related web sites at

http://ranier.hq.nasa.gov/Metal/MetalSites.html

There are links to lots of suppliers and materials sources. Another resources for electronic components and other robot-related items is

http://ranier.hq.nasa.gov/teleroboti...netrobots.html


-dave

Yes, we are in MIAMI and we PICK UP our stuff. We went in to get our stuff, and they said that they were short on sprocks, so we say fine, we ll try tommorrow. I call next day, the lady tells me she will hold it for us for 20 minites (its 20 mins away) and when we get there, they are already gone. Make the story short, took us 3 days for us to get the gears.
Other than that, we've had no big probs with Small Parts- esp since we are right here in Miami and dont have to wait for it to be shipped :)

Another suggestion...
 

McMaster charges an arm and a leg.

Here's my advice. Go to http://yp.yahoo.com. It's online yellow pages for your area. Go type in "gears" and look for local listings of gear manufacturers. They might give you a big discount and might have a less bombarded inventory.

As we all know, Small Parts just purchases from other sources and sells it to us. Just go straight to the manufacturer for sprockets, gears, etc. It'll save you time, money, and stress.

Good luck teams!

-anton

ps. SPI was pretty good in the past years. But they did not think ahead.

Our team has had a lot of luck with Stock Drive Products / Sterling Instruments at http://www.sdp-si.com/. They have good stock and were very helpful and patient on the phone. They even shipped fedex for next day arrival.

Was there a small parts catalog in the kit of parts? No one here remebers ever seeing it?

no, they were not included. According to SPI, they told me they are not official sponsors of first this year.

-anton

No Catalogs ....
 

I requested catalogs for our team back in November and last week. I got a response a couple days ago that Small Parts is out of catalogs.


I expect that the economy is hurting Small Parts and it's ability to provide it's past level of service. I guess everyone has to cut back to survive.

The absence of the grant for Small Parts hurt my hardware budget this year so I don't get to experiment as much as I would like.

Maybe next year ......

:p

Another Hint
 

http://www.globalspec.com

You can search across the industry for the part you want. It is particularly useful for gears and sprockets. They can also help you find local suppliers. But since it is just a place for data exchange, your mileage may vary when it comes to actual results.

Have Fun!

No SPI, Anyone Scared about Regionals?
 

I dont know about you guys, but my team seems to go through a lot of SPI stock, especcially during the wear and tear of a regional. With no on site SPI people, what are we goingt o do. I am very worried.