Worst Deals in FIRST Choice

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

I'm confused a little by the linear v-groove track since the lengths seem small and the bearings aren't also available.

The appear to be cutoffs, which Bishop Wisecarver would otherwise sell for scrap. Better to donate them (which can be written off at full value) I suppose.

But I agree: Too short for much value. I'd make a nice CNC router, but 16" of steel track doesn't help.

[seg9585]

Originally Posted by EricH

I'd call the worst deal the 200 credits for a Classmate. If I had absolutely no other laptop that was usable for the drivers' station and no way to get one, I might think about it. Maybe. The only way it could be worse? If teams were allowed to get three.

The classmates are useful if a student wants to program but has no laptop available. The laptops are small but they're perfectly good for programming or researching tools and parts on the internet. And it would be a last-minute backup for a driver station if your primary station laptop malfunctions (this happened to us last year at our regional when our laptop decided to stop communicating over Ethernet)

[JesseK]

The individual Igus components seem like the obvious worst deal when there's an entire bag of them.

The video card is easily the trickiest part since it's only as good as the knowledge a team already has. Many school computers have the proper PCI-E slot, but don't have a power supply that can support it. So it could definitely be a miss for a team that doesn't check compatibility ahead of time. On the other hand, it could easily be a MASSIVE win for teams who need another CAD machine and have an "almost there" computer donated to them. It also means the team should have some knowledge of CAD to make any use of it, considering that the team won't get it for another few weeks.

There are definitely some steals on there if a team has machining capability and can adapt to a part. 8 ABEC-rated metric bearings for 5 credits ?! Or maybe they're a miss if there's a problem with reliability on the part, thus they're at fire-sale rates.

[Jared]

For 95% of the CAD work most FIRST teams do, that video card is very overkill. An affordable ($200 range) workstation graphics card is all you really need for most modeling tasks. At this point, most reasonable computers are bottlenecked by CPU, not GPU, the opposite of most video games.

That said, if we have left over FC credits, I wouldn't be upset if our team grabbed one for the CAD stations.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Jared

For 95% of the CAD work most FIRST teams do, that video card is very overkill. An affordable ($200 range) workstation graphics card is all you really need for most modeling tasks. At this point, most reasonable computers are bottlenecked by CPU, not GPU, the opposite of most video games.

That said, if we have left over FC credits, I wouldn't be upset if our team grabbed one for the CAD stations.

Agreed that it's overkill. I'd argue for 90% of teams, a processor with integrated Intel HD graphics or a $100 graphics card is more than adequate. Most teams do not work at a level that would see any benefit whatsoever from this video card over one if the aforementioned solutions.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Agreed that it's overkill. I'd argue for 90% of teams, a processor with integrated Intel HD graphics or a $100 graphics card is more than adequate. Most teams do not work at a level that would see any benefit whatsoever from this video card over one if the aforementioned solutions.

I run 8gb ram, Intel i7, and Intel HD graphics on my laptop, and I dislike cadding on it (although I spend hours and hours making swerve modules and gearboxes on it). It runs slow enough that if I load, say, a cad model of our robot, Solidworks turns all rounded parts into rectangular prisms to speed up rendering. Stuff moves slower, complex lightening holes takes a minute or more to update... take a grpahics card over more ram if you can. 4gb ram is enough, but a graphics card is so useful.

[Knufire]

CADing on integrated graphics will be painful when you get into full robot assemblies or complex lightening patterns, but I would concur that a midrange Quadro is very overkill for FRC use. Really low or midrange gaming cards are perfectly adequate.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Agreed that it's overkill. I'd argue for 90% of teams, a processor with integrated Intel HD graphics or a $100 graphics card is more than adequate. Most teams do not work at a level that would see any benefit whatsoever from this video card over one if the aforementioned solutions.

I have witnessed Inventor Pro 2015 on a 3rd-gen i7 and Intel 4000 HD graphics of a school computer. It was nothing short of lousy and discouraging in anything other than sketch mode. I think the card, while overkill, offers the ability to make an additional CAD computer from one that can't handle CAD rather than upgrading an existing CAD machine. All for $0.

In this scenario it's more that the team has a hundred credits that they haven't found a separate use for. I believe my team has only figured out get the most out of about 480 credits thus far and are considering whether to get more components to keep old robots running or small parts that may be useful in prototyping. If we wind up not figuring out a good use (we'd rather put the credits to good use rather than hoarding...) then we may get the card near the end of the purchase window, or one or two other things we're curious about.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by JesseK

I have witnessed Inventor Pro 2015 on a 3rd-gen i7 and Intel 4000 HD graphics of a school computer. It was nothing short of lousy and discouraging in anything other than sketch mode. I think the card, while overkill, offers the ability to make an additional CAD computer from one that can't handle CAD rather than upgrading an existing CAD machine. All for $0.

In this scenario it's more that the team has a hundred credits that they haven't found a separate use for. I believe my team has only figured out get the most out of about 480 credits thus far and are considering whether to get more components to keep old robots running or small parts that may be useful in prototyping. If we wind up not figuring out a good use (we'd rather put the credits to good use rather than hoarding...) then we may get the card near the end of the purchase window, or one or two other things we're curious about.

If teams want workstation graphics cards, there are a bunch used in the $20-50 range on ebay that would work very well.

[ramasai]

Maybe you could get 6 net books @ 100 credits each...

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

They're not real commonly used in FRC, the size and weight are somewhat prohibitive.

Exception: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/3015

In which case it was the perfect solution... minimal weight increase and pretty much plug and play.

So yes, the certainly have valid FRC uses.