Has anyone noticed that the quality of parts distributed this year are worse than previous years?
I haven't been able to spend much time with my team this year due to other obligations at college, but I have had a few strange phone calls that have to due with defective products.
1. The Digital Side Car was defective out of the box. The 6V LED was out and our PWM outputs were intermittent. As I said before, I'm not with my team so I can't see what failed inside the DSC. 6V shouldn't be used for anything except the power pin on the PWM outputs.
2. They purchased the AM-2678 Pneumatic Fittings Kit (
http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-2678.htm) and received some pneumatic tubing from AM, but when using the two products together, every fitting leaked. It wasn't an issue with the tubing not grabbing, but an issue with it just leaking. Apparently the robot was unable to build any pressure at all.
3. The second DSC may also be bad. With nothing connected, our DIO's are reading low, which is causing our compressor to run continuously. I think they're investigating that problem now. This could also be a defective ribbon cable, which was included with the KOP.
4. I've seen some other teams mention it, but our Y-PWM cables did not work. Motor controllers worked fine with just a straight PWM cable, but not with the Y-PWM. This was with Talons.
Not trying to cause a fight or anything, because we do have some great sponsors for FIRST, but I am concerned with what I've been hearing and seeing on these forums this year.
What is everyone elses opinion?