[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by IndySam

Has anybody gotten one or are they just vaporware like the p60's?

Originally Posted by Jared341

To the best of my knowledge, not a single CIM-U-LATOR or P60 has arrived at a team's doorstep this year.

We didn't order any CIM-U-LATORs, but I can confirm that the P60 gearboxes for the RS550 motor are not vaporware. We ordered two on 1/17/2011, and received them on 1/29/2011.

I think part of the backorder problem is that BaneBots was probably expecting a level of demand more like what they experienced in 2009 and 2010. However, I speculate that the demand for the BaneBots motors and gearboxes this year has far exceeded that of 2009 and 2010. I think the increased demand wasn't as much due to the presence of 4 BB motors in the kit, as it is due to fewer *other* motors in the kit which could be used instead of the BaneBots motor. In particular, the removal of the "5th CIM" and the "2nd FisherPrice" in the 2011 KoP (as compared to 2010) along with the removal of the "Globe motor" in 2010 has left very little in the way of other motor/gearbox choices for game piece manipulation, presuming that most teams use 4 CIMs in their drive base. If there were still a "5th CIM" and "2nd FisherPrice" in the kit, I bet a lot of teams wouldn't have placed BaneBots gearbox orders at all, but would have instead used a CIM or FP motor.

We have used BaneBots gearboxes every year since 2006, and have been pretty happy BaneBots customers. We've surely never encountered previous backorder problems like this.

That said, even though we've been happy BaneBots customers since 2006, we're left scrambling this year, too, as we've been wanting to get more BaneBots gearboxes, too...