VEXPro 2014 Product Initial Impressions

Originally Posted by T^2

There's been a lot of moaning and groaning about IFI's poor customer service (for good reason, as my team has experienced), but let's leave that for another thread.

The shipping delays were bad for a lot of teams, but IFI and WCP have had nothing but the best customer service during the course of this season so far. They did everything in their power to get teams their parts as quickly as possible, given the low inventory they had a large mass of orders to tend to, and have been very transparent to teams about the given situation. To blatantly call out their customer service and degrade it (especially in a thread where you claim your only intent is product performance) is not only disrespectful, but also embarrassing to see from one of the top California teams.

[IndySam]

VersaPlanetaries are still the biggest game changer for our team in several years. The improvements this year make it even better.

The large selection of quality aluminum gears are a close second.

The inventory problems are a pain in the you-know-what but they show how the products from Vex and AM have really changed our sport. I'm excited to see what teams are doing with this stuff this year.

[techtiger1]

All of this supports my thought that FRC has become too reliant on COTS items.

[Nemo]

Originally Posted by techtiger1

All of this supports my thought that FRC has become too reliant on COTS items.

Maybe you're right. Ideally all teams would have access to a mill and lathe and have some ways to slide into Plan B if certain items become unavailable.

[donkehote]

Originally Posted by techtiger1

All of this supports my thought that FRC has become too reliant on COTS items.

this is a problem why?

Raising the floor makes all the events more exciting, and its nice to see the ability for many teams to more "easily" make a robot that drives, but also has some sort of function.

I think the large array of COTS parts are great. Il add a review of 5031's vex experience once we get the rest of the parts we need to actually use them. (could have been delivered on the weekend, or yesterday, i don't know, haven't been at the school.

[Steven Smith]

Originally Posted by techtiger1

All of this supports my thought that FRC has become too reliant on COTS items.

I know this was intended to be somewhat sarcastic, but to those concerned about the impact of COTS on FRC (I'm not one)... these comments remind me there there is still a huge amount of value to building team resources that can machine components and do internal testing.

There is always room for improvement. For example, the VersaChassis tolerances aren't tight enough such that you can just slap rivets on a frame and magically get a perfectly square chassis. We had ~1/8" of runout at 1ft from square after the freshman rivet team had their fun. It probably would have worked, but I had them drill them all out, showed them how to assemble it square, match drill, watch that they weren't twisting the frame as they riveted, etc. Now we are < 1/32" runout at 1ft.

That being said, when the Versa 2x1" was out of stock, our team priced regular 2x1" stock at a local supply house. Same price. Meaning, VEXPro is already beating them on VALUE. Sure they can charge me double for the frame to tighten the tolerances up a bit to make it foolproof, or I can be less foolish.

Same thing goes for other products. I remember reading about motor failures (BAG?) because people were side-loading or thrust loading motor shafts that were never spec'd for those loads. I can either demand VEX make a "more robust" motor that has additional weight and size with internal bearings able to take more abuse... or I can not abuse it.

Another one for us was Delrin washers. We figured out pretty quick that the 1/16" or 1/8" spacers weren't a great value (for us), as we're lucky enough to have a laser cutter that can run 300 to a sheet for 10% of the cost. Not everyone has a 30W laser cutter though. Even then, the thicker ones bloomed too much and the 2" thick spacers were a better value than spanning a several inch gap with a bucket of 1/8" spacers. Same goes for machining, many teams with "free" student/mentor machining time can create parts from raw stock cheaper than VEX. I'm sure VEX would be perfectly willing to sell parts more cheaply to FRC if you will supply them with the parts at a consistent tolerance and free labor to make thousands of them each year.

Back to the OP:
Long story short, if you want to hop on CD to criticize VEXPro (or AM, or any of our other suppliers that cater to FRC)... you would be well off to word your posts more positively. I may share some frustrations, but I also understand what is and is not realistic to expect of both the equipment and the companies at the pricing we receive parts at.

[Brandon Holley]

Thus far we have been very impressed with the VP parts we've received.

The 2X1 versatube is just freakin' awesome stuff. I love the 0.100" wall for weight savings and the ability to stuff a pulley inside.

We used several of the 15mm HTD pulleys (24T and 36T), as well as a few belt sizes. The parts are all obviously very high quality. We of course love the black anodize of the pulleys, but the fact that we didnt need to machine off hubs, or broach them ourselves is just a giant PLUS in our book.

The gears are very high quality as well. The drivetrain all assembled very smoothly, and runs extremely smoothly with very little noticeable friction in the system. Our drive train subteam was extremely happy with the setup.

Some photos below showing our implementation.

-Brando

[Ian Curtis]

Having never purchased VexPro parts before, extremely impressed with the Versaplanetaries. Gave one of our with-it a freshman a shipping box and a bucket of grease, told him where the Vex website was, and an hour later we had gearboxes! I love the options you have... ordered stages intending one set of ratios and actually built a separate set of ratios.

The CIM to VP also gave us an excuse to cut down some really banged up CIM output shafts.

There is just something adorable about a BAG in a Versaplanetary... thinking over the off-season we'll have to to purchase some 2 or 3 inch colsons and make a little drivetrain.

[Coach Norm]

Originally Posted by Steven Smith

Back to the OP:
Long story short, if you want to hop on CD to criticize VEXPro (or AM, or any of our other suppliers that cater to FRC)... you would be well off to word your posts more positively. I may share some frustrations, but I also understand what is and is not realistic to expect of both the equipment and the companies at the pricing we receive parts at.

As a mentor of our team, I am very disappointed to see some of the posts on CD blasting suppliers as some have. Is this the example we are wanting to set for our students? If these posts are from students, mentors where are you when the students need your guidance?

If you have such issues, deal directly with VEX. They have been very open to communications with all the teams here on CD and offered several ways for teams to communicate with them.


We are very fortunate to have suppliers who believe in FRC and the opportunities it provides for the students involved. I am certain that the prices and services they provide are not what we would find from other suppliers or we would see more vendors in this arena. AM, VEX and WCP are all veteran FRC'ers who know how the season goes in regards to getting orders in, managing time and completing builds.


Best of luck all.

[wireties]

1296 ordered lots of stuff from VexPro this year and, like others, a few parts were late arriving. But I dealt with the VP staff personally (since I pick the stuff up on the way home from work) and found them very professional and eager to make up for anything they could. We got varying reasons for the delays but all seemed logical to me - indeed they have all happened to me. And I normally deal with huge suppliers, not a niche market like FIRST. When something delayed my "builds" I had to explain it to an Admiral (I made a big piece of the navigation systems on our carriers). Generally speaking my customers were understanding as long as I made it up somehow. The point is that this happens in the "real world". There are lessons to be learned. I have found that politely but firmly pressing my suppliers and working out realistic resolutions that benefit all parties is a good way to go.

I did NOT find the pricing "devious" in any way. On the contrary I liked the "configuration" approach on the VP web site. It made perfect sense to me.

Nothing we bought from VexPro, this year or last, has ever failed. We used ball-shifters, versa planetaries, motors, shafts, bearings and many pneumatic COTS items both last year and this year.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Coach Norm

As a mentor of our team, I am very disappointed to see some of the posts on CD blasting suppliers as some have. Is this the example we are wanting to set for our students? If these posts are from students, mentors where are you when the students need your guidance?

If you have such issues, deal directly with VEX. They have been very open to communications with all the teams here on CD and offered several ways for teams to communicate with them.


We are very fortunate to have suppliers who believe in FRC and the opportunities it provides for the students involved. I am certain that the prices and services they provide are not what we would find from other suppliers or we would see more vendors in this arena. AM, VEX and WCP are all veteran FRC'ers who know how the season goes in regards to getting orders in, managing time and completing builds.
Best of luck all.

Well said.

There is a teachable lesson here for all FIRST team members. Buying from a manufacturer like Vexpro or Andymark is much different than going and buying something from Amazon.

1. Small suppliers can only keep a small supply on hand. They have to pay taxes on inventory, and over building and surplus inventory is a drag on a bottom line. All too often, that bottom line is very very small.

2. Small suppliers order in batches. They don't call a store two counties over and ask to have some stock sent over. They have to guess demand ahead of time and try to stock up.

3. Small suppliers have a small workforce. AM and Vexpro have one 'big' season. During the rest of the year, they're fullfilling orders but on a scale that is probably a couple orders of magnitude smaller. They can't quadruple their workforce then fire all those people.

Those who work in manufacturing or own a small business understand these things pretty well, but for most of our team members it's a new concept. They're use to retail: Amazon, Itunes, and Mcdonalds. Those people who have been with FIRST for some time have a point of reference in comparing good versus bad suppliers. Those who haven't been around don't have a reference point, and don't understand how excellent the service that we're getting really is.

Back to the original subject at hand - I absolutely love versa planetaries. They blow the Banebots products out of the water.

[Foster]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

... Vexpro have one 'big' season. During the rest of the year, they're fullfilling orders but on a scale that is probably a couple orders of magnitude smaller. They can't quadruple their workforce then fire all those people.

Yes, I agree, VEX went out on a limb during their super busy VEX season to launch new VEXPro products. In VEX and VexIQ we don't do that big math stuff, just trying to remember how big a difference in "a couple of orders of magnitude" is. "...middle and high school robotics program globally with more than 7,300 teams from 25 countries playing in over 400 tournaments worldwide." Lets see that's almost twice the number of FRC teams, so does that make it two orders of magnitude?

I'm impressed, my shipments of VEX and VexIQ parts are chugging along, sorry that your VexPRO stuff has had some snags. Kudos to the people in shipping that are making this happen.

[Ben Martin]

About 2/3 of the money spent on our robots so far this year has gone toward Vex/WCP products. Everything we bought from them last year ran great through ten competitions, and after the game was released, we thought using their part ecosystem was the best COTS chassis option to meet our needs for this game. A team like ours would not be able to be near as competitive without the array of COTS options available by suppliers like Vex.

I really appreciate the responses in the various CD threads and Chance from Vex, Clinton from The Robot Space, and the WCP team for responding to my calls, helping me to properly forecast when items would arrive, and letting me know which distribution hub has given items in stock. We will be providing more business as the needs arise.

Thanks BTW for Build Blitz, it was nice showcase of how to make really effective robots while not neglecting the design process in a very short span of time. I learned a lot.

<offtopic>Is there a good choice of snap ring for the hex shafts on the Versachassis? Maybe a McMaster part #?</offtopic>

[AlecS]

Originally Posted by Ben Martin

<offtopic>Is there a good choice of snap ring for the hex shafts on the Versachassis? Maybe a McMaster part #?</offtopic>

Here you go

[Ben Martin]

Originally Posted by AlecS

Here you go

Thank you!