VEXPro - After the season

[Brian Selle]

I was very impressed with the VexPro products we used. One of the things I appreciated most was the pricing. They started the whole thing... they lowered the price on the Victors/Jags and everyone had to follow. With quality, price and support, their site became one of my first choices when looking for parts.

What we used:

1) Versaplanetary gearboxes - Awesome product. Love being able to design the mount interface quickly with the idea that we interchange gear ratios and motors at any time. Slight issue aligning a AM9015 motor on one gearbox but it was resolved.

2) Gears - Very high quality, lightweight and strong 7075 AL, perfect. Used lots of these on our intake and shooter. Drilled and broached several of the 3/8" hex gears for a 1/2" keyed shaft on our shooter wheel.

3) Hex Shaft, Bearings, Collars - It was very hard to find 7075 3/8" hex shaft at the start of the season, they had it. We used a ton of 1/2" hex shaft, with no problems. We ordered 40 VexPro bearings - not so good. The shaft fit fine but was off-center and wobbled. We ended up using them on our practice robot anyway after the global shortage of hex bearings. This and the AM bearings being too small had me questioning the whole hex thing... I'm sure it will all be worked out next year. Used several collars, very nice and lightweight.

4) Pneumatics - While not VexPro products... I really appreciated the one-stop shopping and not having to spend hours figuring out the SMC and Festo catalogs.


Below is my VexPro product Wish List / Improvements for next year:

1) 8mm keyed CIM to 1/2" Hex adapter from 7075 AL - we made several of these ourselves using the 1/2 hex shaft. Would buy them if they were available... the $10 AM product is steel and too expensive.

2) Hex washers - we used these a lot of places, had our supplier laser out 0.050, 0.063, 0.090, and 0.125 thickness. VexPro has 0.125 delrin which is great... but need other thicknesses.

3) More gears! - 11 and 14T CIM motor gears from 7075 AL would be nice. Also 45T 1/2" hex and more 3/8" selections.

4) 1/4" flanged bearings and collars - we ended up with a bunch of these on our robot. There aren't a lot of choices... the McMaster ones we used are pretty awful.

5) Planetary gearbox shaft length - small thing but... we had to cut off the shafts and drill/tap the end hole on all the gearboxes we used. My first thought was that we could take them apart and put a snap ring groove on the lathe, but that was not happening, they don't come apart. Would be nice to have a couple choices in shaft length or perhaps a few snap ring grooves to use instead of the end screw.

6) Pneumatics - Single solenoid valve... would have bought several of these if available. Some air tanks would be nice as well.

7) GT2 pulleys - 9mm 1/2" hex AL and/or plastic pulleys would be sweet. Out with the chain... belts are here to stay.

8) Wavy washers for 3/8" and 1/2" Hex - Not a big deal to buy from McMaster but goes along with the drive train theme and one-stop shopping is nice.

9) Faster website - it's designed well and nice but a tad slow.

All-in-all I think VexPro hit a home run for FRC with these products and with time will only get better.