VEX Pro Parts Feedback, 2015

[Adam Freeman]

VEX needs to find a way to make the Versaplanetary gearboxes weigh essentially nothing...

I mean, they are so versitile and easy to use that when you have (10) 2 stage gearboxes, (2) 3 stage gearboxes on your robot, all of a sudden it starts to get pretty heavy or nearly over-weight.

In all seriousness, we used almost exclusively all VEXpro parts for mechanism gearboxes, bearings, shaft collars, and drivetrain components (belts, pulleys, wheels, etc...). I can't even think of what else to ask for...all the products offer such high quality and versitility for a robot designer.

*Edit - We actually ended up not using VEXpro belts for the drivetrain. We had to switch from the 9mm VEXpro belts to 15mm wide, 5mm pitch Kevlar corded belts from Mcmaster (http://www.mcmaster.com/#timing-belts/=wyasp5) because we were skipping and failing them on our practice bot drive system. Forgot about that. We will not be using the 9mm belts or any non-kevlar belts on our drive systems any more. Just doesn't seem worth it to risk failing a belt and an inopertune time of a competition.

Take this with a grain of salt based on where I'm from, but the WCP 32DP gears have to be some of my favorite products so far. They make getting a large reduction in a lightweight and compact packaging simpler and more effective than planetary gearboxes (and in my experiences, more reliable). The seamless integration with pinions for the BAG motor, RS775, and RS550 alongside their perfectly chosen gear sizes (in 20, 40, 60, and 80 teeth) make it so that most any mechanism (especially intakes) can be powered off of one or two stages to get the perfect reduction.

These are a product I haven't seen widely used or known about that I feel would greatly help teams accomplish some of their more complex or weight-dependent design goals.

[Bryce2471]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

Take this with a grain of salt based on where I'm from, but the WCP 32DP gears have to be some of my favorite products so far. They make getting a large reduction in a lightweight and compact packaging simpler and more effective than planetary gearboxes (and in my experiences, more reliable). The seamless integration with pinions for the BAG motor, RS775, and RS550 alongside their perfectly chosen gear sizes (in 20, 40, 60, and 80 teeth) make it so that most any mechanism (especially intakes) can be powered off of one or two stages to get the perfect reduction.

These are a product I haven't seen widely used or known about that I feel would greatly help teams accomplish some of their more complex or weight-dependent design goals.

I have been hoping that a major FRC supplier would start stocking and selling 32dp gears, for a couple years now. I went the whole season without knowing that WCP was doing it.
Thanks for bringing it up, but it's a little too late, since I just came back from the last competition of my high school FRC career.

[sanddrag]

We had several instances of the motor adapters in the Veraaplanetaries slipping on the motor shafts. And yes they were the proper ones, and they were cleaned prior to assembling, properly torqued, and loctite applied.

[Thad House]

Our robot was essentially a VexPro demo bot. We used the clamping gearboxes, 4 inch mecanums, gears, VPs, hubs, linear elevator kit, and most importantly ThunderHex.

ThunderHex was probably one of the most impressive things I have seen in FRC in a long time. Bearing slop was a thing of the past. Our practice bot used standard hex on the drive, and our comp bot use ThunderHex. The drive on the comp bot was so much smoother it was incredible. We will be using it for years and years to come, especially since it is cheaper then regular hex from Vex.

The 4 inch mecanums were great. We only had 1 break on the practice bot, and it was broken on arrival. I loved them, but I hope we don't have to use them again (I miss my WCD). But if we do, I trust them, and they were very reliable.

The Linear Elevator Kit was great, at least for the plates. We had issues with the 1/2" OD bearings falling apart, so we had to space out our shuttle a bit more, and go to larger bearings for them. But otherwise they were amazing, and very reliable. No problems at all.

The CIM mounts for the VPs were amazing. We used 1 for our Arm, and 1 for our Lift and they both were solid. Figuring out the best way to cut the CIM shaft took a bit of time, but it wasn't too bad.

All in All, I don't think we had a single problem with any Vex parts this season.

If I was going to make a suggestion, The Ball Shifters could use some improvements. I would love to see a ball shifter designed from the start for WCD, maybe even using the WCP style plates. I love the ball shifter idea, but with how weird the mount is, how much space they take up lengthwise, and cantilevering the gearboxes that far is rough, at least in my eyes.

[Michael Hill]

I don't think we could be much happier with their performance. I don't believe we had to change any of our 4" omni wheels at all (no defense does help the situation). We ran belt for the first time this year, and used the HTD from Vex. Those worked out great. We used the calculator on West Coast Products' website (with the added [I think 0.003"] between the centers). Didn't have any ratcheting issues. We drove the versaplanetary with a BAG pretty hard. We had a lead screw mechanism. We fortunately didn't have any issues with the snap ring in the gearbox from placing axial force on it like other teams. We had to change gear ratios several times, so I got pretty good at disassembling and reassembling them. The only issue I seem to remember was having not enough material in the mounting bolt holes. There are only a few thousands of aluminum with threads (Either 8-32 or 10-32, I can't recall). We started seeing wear on the threads and eventually stripped them out and had to get a new mounting block. I was initially critical about including so many extra pieces with the versaplanetary wishing you could configure what you wanted online to save a couple bucks, but we eventually used some of what we initially considered extra parts, so I'm glad for that.

We did burn out one BAG motor, but we were admittedly pushing it way harder than we should have. MiniCIMs were great. We used them for our strafing and they worked out great. We used a couple of gears that worked out fine. Actually, one of the most useful VEX products we used this year were the Delrin hex spacers. We found ourselves using them in situations where we weren't expecting. Having pre-made consistently sized spacers were pretty handy keeping on hand, and I'll recommend we buy more next year. We did use the nylon versahubs for our drive and they worked out fine, but when we used them on our arm, they didn't work out so hot. There was a little too much play that they allowed so we had to take them off. Lesson learned.

[Mike Marandola]

We used VEXpro 6 inch mecanums and tube axle this year, both with success.

6 inch mecanums: The rollers would occasionally bind up due to dirt and dust getting to the bushings, but that wasn't the wheel's fault and we just had to be conscious of this between matches.

1/2" tube axle: We used the tube axle in conjunction with the AM14U2 and 1/4-20s going through to keep everything solid. The only problem was that it wasn't a consistent diameter along the 3 foot piece. The 1/2" flange bearings that we bought from VP wouldn't fit in some spots. This was easily fixed on the lathe and some emery cloth. We are very pleased with it and would use it again.

#ballshiftsohard

[asid61]

Clamping gearboxes worked flawlesly for us. Hex bearings were no problem, WCP bearing blocks, etc all worked fine.
The versaplanetary on our elevator started to fall apart though. The locating pins that kept multiple stages' sides in line with each other and made the whole thing look like a ractangular prism started to fall apart, so the point where we put a hose clamp around the gearbox to stop it from jerking violently every time we moved our elevator. When we opened it up we found that the pin was fine, but the hole it went into had become a slot.

I want 3/8" hex sprockets, or at least versahubs! Why are there no 3/8" hex versahubs!?

[cbale2000]

6" Omni Wheels: We used 7 of these on our robots H-Drive this year. It was our first time using Omni Wheels and we were not disappointed, the wheels held up all year didn't have any issues with durability. The fact that the wheels shipped already assembled was also a huge time-saver.
Our only complaint was that we got quite a bit of material buildup (presumably from the carpet and plastic from the ramps) that proved difficult to clean up and negatively affected traction. We purchased a set of replacement wheels and swapped them out at the MSC as a precaution.

Single Speed, Double Reduction Gearboxs: We've used VexPro Ball Shifters before but this was our first time using the single speed gearboxes. The gearboxes held up all season and required no maintenance after initially assembly.
When we assembled the gearboxes, we did notice that one of the three gearboxes had some difficulty going together (the two pieces of the casing would not close all the way). Later after wiring up the gearboxes, we also noticed one of them ran very rough (sounded like grinding gears, and occasionally the gearbox seemed to "catch" on something). Disassembling and reassembling the gearboxes didn't provide a fix to the problem, but after running the gearbox under power for a while, the issue seemed to resolve itself. We're hoping to get the gearboxes apart again now that the season is over and see if we can diagnose the problem.

VersaPlanetary CIM Adaptor: Having had to make our own adapter (out of a solid block of aluminum) last year, the VexPro CIM Adapter is a welcome addition for our team. The weight savings is excellent and it held up surprisingly well to the weight of a MiniCIM cantilevered off the back of it, and along with a 35:1 Versaplanetary, drove our conveyor system without any issues.

Colson Performa Wheels: When building our tote intake this year, we initially used 4" VexPro Traction wheels, direct driven by VersaPlanetary gearboxes with bag motors, to collect totes into our robot. This proved extremely ineffective during our initial tests, so we started looking for other options. We came across the 4" x 0.875", 1/2" Hex bore Colson wheels which seemed like they would be a great fit for our collector (having heard of how great Colson wheels are from other teams for years). While the Colson wheels were far more effective at grabbing totes then the traction wheels had been, they still didn't have the grip we were looking for, and additionally, the wheels started to wear down after our first competition.
We ended up replacing the Colson wheels with 4" Urethane Drive Rollers (60A) from McMaster for our last two competitions (thanks to team 314 for the idea) which worked much better for tote collection.
We have certainly not written off Colson wheels for future projects, but they were not a good fit for our robot this year.


Suggestions:

• Standardize wheel widths - Our initial robot design called for 6" Traction wheels, but after deciding to switch to H-Drive, we had to widen our drive base to accommodate the slightly wider 6in Omni-Wheels. Ideally, it would be nice if all same-diameter wheels were interchangeable with no modification.
• Make a shaft spacer that mates on one side to the VersaKey pattern in wheels and gears - I absolutely hate spacers in a drive system; there is nothing worse than having to chase after a dozen tiny rolling spacers when you have to swap out a wheel or fix a chain within a few minutes. Having spacers that mated to the VersaKey pasterns on VexPro wheels and gears would greatly alleviate this issue. I actually attempted to make such spacers myself using our teams 3D printer, but it proved problematic to build without dissolveable support material or hours of sanding off regular support material.
• It would be great if VEX stocked K1 Chain attachments for 35 chain (and 25 chain if possible). You can buy it from McMaster but it's 3 times more expensive then other sources (which have much slower shipping).

[nathannfm]

Originally Posted by asid61

I want 3/8" hex sprockets, or at least versahubs! Why are there no 3/8" hex versahubs!?

THIS! How am I supposed to use the 3/8 hex bevel gears on a swerve module that has chain to the wheel. 3/8" hex sprockets would save us a ton of time and money.

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

Take this with a grain of salt based on where I'm from, but the WCP 32DP gears have to be some of my favorite products so far. They make getting a large reduction in a lightweight and compact packaging simpler and more effective than planetary gearboxes (and in my experiences, more reliable). The seamless integration with pinions for the BAG motor, RS775, and RS550 alongside their perfectly chosen gear sizes (in 20, 40, 60, and 80 teeth) make it so that most any mechanism (especially intakes) can be powered off of one or two stages to get the perfect reduction.

These are a product I haven't seen widely used or known about that I feel would greatly help teams accomplish some of their more complex or weight-dependent design goals.

Why are these not available from vexpro.com and why are they all on backorder, stuff like this makes me nervous about planing to use them in season as much as I would love to try them out.

Originally Posted by nathannfm

Why are these not available from vexpro.com and why are they all on backorder, stuff like this makes me nervous about planing to use them in season as much as I would love to try them out.

Because they're from WCP, not VEXPro. RC would be the better person to ask, but as I understand it, the two only act as distributors of some of each other's products - they are still their own independent companies (hence why WCP only sells vexpro items and not vexiq or vrc things, and why VEX doesn't sell WCP gears and sensors, among other things).

I'm not too sure about the backorder status (once again RC is the person to ask). Emailing him is the best way of getting information that you don't know, and it seems so many people have questions but don't ask, so please do ask. I'm no official affiliate of the company, but I imagine it's hard for them to know what questions need answering and what could use some clarification if nobody asks them.

[Anupam Goli]

I've gotta say, we've been using VexPro and WCP COTS items more and more lately. We've been on the board with them since 2013, but there were some components that specifically stood out to me this season:

WCP SS gearboxThese gearboxes were really easy to work with. Once we installed them, we just had to spray them with lithium grease maybe once a competition, and that was it. They were easy to use, easy to maintain, and easy to switch motors in and out of. We'll likely be using these guys if we go with WCD-style drivetrains again in the future.

Plastic hex hubs. We used these suckers on our omni wheels. These wheels were live driven and had plenty of weight on them. We didn't have a single one break or cause issues. In a game with actual defense, that may not be the case, but for this year's game, they were cheap and perfect.

There were some things that I'd like to improve, though.

I'm not sure whether it was because of the new Colson mold that included the hub or not, but obtaining Colson Live Hubs this year was kind of a pain. Vex and WCP were out of stock for a majority of the season. Luckily, I remembered that TheRobotSpace existed still, we were able to get the hubs we needed, and quickly (Thanks Clinton Bolinger for the great response time and processing time!). This item may have been more of a niche item now, but 5" and 6" colson wheels still need hubs if we want them live driven.

The only complaint about the Colsons with molded hubs I had was that they seemed to be press-fit for hex shaft, where as the WCP Colson live hubs were loose fit. Sometimes it was a pain to get the smaller colson wheels on and off hex shafts.

It would also be nice to figure out a way to use a CIM or mini-CIM in a VP gearbox without having to cut the shaft down, but that's way easier said than done.

[steelerborn]

The VexPro clamping gearboxes worked really well for us this year.

I really like how they can also accept VersaPlanetary (VP) gearboxes. We used a cim, using the cim adapter, into the VP gearboxes which we put onto the clamping gearboxes. We were able to test so many different gear reductions without changing the overall system. We had no failures on our lift system because of this.

Some things to change:
VexPro please give us 8 bolts and 8 nuts in the clamping gearbox assembly when you order it! We needed to use all 8 on our lift gearboxes otherwise we would see flexing on the gearbox plastic. Luckily we ordered spares so we just took the 4 from them.

Also there were some instances when we were first installing them that the hex cutout on the gearbox became stripped and made it very hard to get the nut out without destroying the plastic near the gearbox. We learned to watch the nut and be careful not to strip the cutout, but a few simple redesigns would make this problem go away.