[Paul Copioli]

The VP encoder uses the exact same encoder board that the CTRE mag encoder uses. VEX purchases the fully tested board (not just IC) from CTRE and integrates it into a VP slice.

The gear is a custom gear we designed and manufacture specifically to interface with the "spline gear" that couples each of the ring gear stages together. You have to purchase the entire encoder slice in order to get this gear. The gear would be very hard to integrate into a custom gearbox because it is a specialized metric gear with profile shift in order to get the gear ratio and packaging we wanted. And yes, the gear has the magnet already embedded. We wanted to make it as easy as possible to use.

Now, one thing you can do is make a VP with no gear stages, just the input->encoder slice ->output and use that to connect to your spinning shaft. I know it may be a little heavier than you want, but it is very fast to integrate.

Otherwise, I would just use the mag encoder with a magnet you embed in a shaft.

Paul