Source for additional totes?

[Travis Covington]

Originally Posted by jlindquist74

Between age and airline handling, some of our totes have cracked, and I expect more to wear out in the next year or two. I'd like to have replacements on hand before I need them. Has anyone found a good source for the same totes that FIRST uses for KoP?

ULine has a product that looks right, but none of their dimensions match what's listed in this year's KoP checklist (18" x 27" x 13".) Home Depot sells something similar, but they're smaller and a little flimsy, there's no way they stand up to the abuse ours take. (We had to hand-truck ours from our hotel to the venue in Milwaukee last weekend. Of course some got dropped!)

FIRST has provided totes from various companies over the years, most of which are the same size and nest inside each other just fine. The most common I have found are the Orbis and Monoflo brands.

Since you are in SoCal, the best/fastest place to get them is McMaster. They carry the Orbis bins in the correct size (as is usual with McMaster, though, they do not tell you the brand).

$30.15 ea - http://www.mcmaster.com/#4659t3/=ramx36

We recently ordered 12 of these and paid ~$20 shipping for Ontrac overnight delivery to Mountain View, CA.



You can also get the Monoflo ones for quite a bit cheaper at Global Industrial, but the shipping costs and transit times will be quite a bit higher.

$17 ea (must order in packs of 3) - http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/st...-4x12-1-2-blue

For those who might care, the monoflo blue is quite a bit lighter than the orbis blue. The orbis blue is more of a true royal blue color, where the monoflo tote is a lighter baby blue/teal color. We much prefered the royal blue Orbis totes since they matched our team identity standards better. The grays and reds of the two brands are quite similar though.

Ace hardware used to stock the Monoflo totes in black, and they still have them on their website for ~$15, but they do not appear to have them in stock anywhere. It is also not a stocked color from Monoflo unless you order 500+ for a custom lot.

Hope this helps!

Edit: Do not order the clear ones. They are made from polypropylene and are much weaker.