Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Copioli
... Did you even think that some people may not want the cylinder? This cylinder is $40 and is an unnecessary expense if you already have it. We clearly put on our web site that it was not included. With that said, there was a period during the inventory transition that our web site stated the ball shifters included the cylinder, because we included it last year. Customers that ordered at that time (during the order period for the old 2 CIM Ball Shifter) that have contacted us were sent the cylinders free of charge.
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Paul, is the option of getting the cylinders still open? My team ordered a pair of 2-CIM ball shifters back in December when the website still said they came with cylinders, by the time they got to us though, the website had changed to say they did not, so we figured it had been a typo and did not pursue it further at the time.
Now, getting back to the subject of this thread, I will add a few thoughts...
This is our first year buying VEXPro products (aside from speed controllers); we started with a pair of 2 CIM Ball Shifters we ordered in December, and after being impressed with their quality and ease of assembly, we went on to purchase a pair of 3-CIM Ball shifters, 14 4" Traction Wheels, 24 50-tooth Gears and some Hex Shaft (all of which we plan to use to drive
this). Here's my personal opinions on each:
3-CIM Ball Shifters
Pros:
- Lighter than alternative gearboxes
- Seems to drive smoother than gearboxes we've used in the past
- Small profile, given the whats in them.
Cons:
- The assembly instructions were a little more confusing than the 2-CIM Ball Shifters.
- The gearboxes seemed to have been shipped with the wrong size (too long) screws, which stick out through the hex (spacers?) too far and prevents the faceplate from being screwed on tightly. In our case our mounting system worked around this issue so its not a problem for us on our robot this year.
- It would be nice if the 3rd stage versions came with an extra set of hex shaft spacers to allow for face mounting the gearbox while being supported from all 4 corners (We ended up making our own spacers out of AM Churro tube, which works fairly well).
- It was not immediately clear how to properly mount the CIM gears to the motors and the instructions did not cover this step, the gears also appeared to not come with all the hardware to do so (of course this is based on how we're used to mounting motors on AM gearboxes, so we could just be doing it wrong).
4" Traction Wheels
Pros:
- Super Light, less than half of the weight of our previous custom aluminum gears of the same size.
- Very easy to assemble.
Cons:
- Mounting tread with rivets was a bit tricky since you have to use long rivets that also have wide enough heads to hold the tread on. We ended up having to use long rivets with small heads and using washers to keep the tread on. Some instructions on recommended tread installation methods and rivet sizes would be helpful in the future.
50-Tooth Gears w/ VersaKeys
Pros:
- They're so freaking light!
- The versa keys were great for mounting the gears onto the wheels (using VersaHubs). The alignment looks great.
Cons:
- A few of the gears had a hard time fitting onto the VersaHubs (not sure if this was a problem with the hubs or the gears though).
- I'm not sure if they just weren't available yet when we ordered the gears or if we were just looking in the wrong place, but in retrospect it would have been better if we had ordered some of the gears with 1.125" bearing holes instead of hex.
Hex Shaft
Pros:
- Smooth fit onto our hex gears, works much better than hex stock we've gotten elsewhere
Cons:
- It would have been nice if the longer length options were available (in stock).