Electrical Parts Needed

[mcarobotics]

Our rookie team had a great season this year with our robot, which was a shooter. We have been doing a lot of outreach and demos with it in the community and we have been able to attract many people to FIRST because of it.
We want to be able to keep it running to use in demos; however, we do not have enough money to spend on extra electrical parts and we will need to strip it if we want to build a robot next year.
I am wondering if there are any teams that have lots of spare parts who would be willing to send us some so that we can keep our robot.
We would need 4-5 speed controllers, a power distribution board, a sidecar, a wireless router, and an on/off switch.
We do not have much extra money but if teams are willing to sell items cheap, trade for them or simply just give them away we would be very grateful.
Thanks!

[saikiranra]

The power distribution board, digital sidecar, wireless router, and circuit breaker are provided in every year's kit of parts. I believe that you can get speed controllers on FIRST Choice, offered before/at the beginning of the season.

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...c/kit-of-parts

Good luck!

[orangemoore]

Have you considered fundraising or getting sponsors? It appears from The blue alliance that you don't have any.

[plnyyanks]

If you have the ability to order parts online, here are some links:
- speed controllers: Jaguars, Victors, Talons all have their pros and cons. There are numerous threads discussing the differences.
- power distribution board
- digital sidecar
- wireless router
- an on/off switch

If your team needs to raise money (and who doesn't), Fundraising 101 and Sponsorship 101 are two great places to start.

[jbsmithtx]

Do you have a cRio? That's the one thing that is really expected to be used year after year, and there are alternate control methods, such as RobotOpen and Arduino. The main parts as other said will be replaced (PDB, Sidecar, etc.) The only other concerns would be motor controllers, and I'm sure some local teams would like to loan (you may have to get Jags since few like them). You really should not have to dismantle a robot every year, unless you want a lot of the mechanical components... Generally maintaining this way should cost you about $300 max(4-5 controllers, arduino/RobotOpen), and perhaps a local sponsor would be willing to chip this in for the sake of the community.

[ToddF]

Are you willing/able to repair damaged units? Lots of teams smoke motor controllers and digital sidecars, and just throw them away. If you can repair them, you would be recycling what would just be trash to most teams.