REV Robotics 2016 Products

[Greg Needel]

Hey All,
We took a distributed approach to our product announcement this year, rolling them out as products were available. I thought with kickoff just around the corner we would provide you with one central spot to highlight some of the things we have going on this year.

New for 2016

• SPARK motor controller - The lowest cost FRC legal motor controller at $45 Fully Featured, and built to withstand anything your FRC team can throw at it. Features passive cooling, limit switch inputs, Brake/cost modes, and more.
  
  Teams were asking for more testing data so, we just released some of our own and team 1718 did also.

• More Board v2 - A new version of our breakout board for the roboRIO MXP. It has some improved features and layout, including one of the most requested features, a pass through connector (so you can now stack other boards like the NavX). It allows your team to gain easy access to all of the IO inside the roboRIO.

• Digit MXP Display - multi-use MXP board for interface with the roboRIO. It has four 12 segment displays, which can be used to show any letters or numbers. It also features an analog potentiometer and two momentary buttons. Teams can use the digit to display their battery voltage, select autonomous modes, tune PID variables, or display real time messages. The Digit communicates with the roboRIO using the I2C interface.

• Analog Pressure sensor - a 5V sensor that can measure pressures up to 200 PSI. It outputs an analog voltage that is proportional to the measured pressure and can plug directly into the roboRIO so you can create smart features on your robot while monitoring pressure & display your real time pressure on your smart dashboard.

• Smart Robot Servo & Programmer - a configurable metal-geared servo that takes the guesswork out of aligning and adjusting servo based mechanisms. One SRS can be used as a standard angular servo, a custom angular servo, and a continuous rotation servo by simply changing its settings.

• 15mm Extrusion building system - We built out our line of brackest and building systems for our new smaller extrusion. It has been used heavily in FTC this year by many teams, but also has quite a bit of utility for FRC teams trying to build small, light and strong mechanisms.

• 1" Extrusion building system - Same base design as last year with some improvements to some of our brackets & linear motion parts. If you need a strong framing system with the ability to infinitely adjust your position, it is a great easy way to build.
  
  The extrusion is an integral part to building the new AndyMark Rhino Tank drivetrain

As always, we are committed to providing high quality products at prices that every team can afford. SPARK motor controller and our other electronics products are available on Amazon (free shipping & Prime)
and all of our products (except for the SPARK) are also available on AndyMark.

We wish your teams the best of luck this season and look forward to seeing you at events all over the world :-)

Thanks,

Greg

[FTC5110]

Hey Greg,
Can you confirm the REV Servo spline is the same as Futaba 3F?
We want to use the Actobotics ServoBlock with them.

https://www.servocity.com/html/servo...b___500__.html

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by FTC5110

Hey Greg,
Can you confirm the REV Servo spline is the same as Futaba 3F?
We want to use the Actobotics ServoBlock with them.

https://www.servocity.com/html/servo...b___500__.html

Yes, the Futaba 3F is the same as the REV servo. It is generically referred to as the 25T.

[FTC5110]

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

Yes, the Futaba 3F is the same as the REV servo. It is generically referred to as the 25T.

Great thanks for that. Would you consider adding a replacement gearset for them in the future? No idea if we'll end up with damaged units since we haven't used them in competition but we've repaired a fair few HiTec servos over the years.

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by FTC5110

Great thanks for that. Would you consider adding a replacement gearset for them in the future? No idea if we'll end up with damaged units since we haven't used them in competition but we've repaired a fair few HiTec servos over the years.

We will have to take a look at this. I haven't heard of any teams breaking the gears in the servos (because they are all metal vs the plastic ones of other servos) but if it starts to happen, we will make them available.

[kiettyyyy]

The Digit MXP looks awfully familiar to what The Holy Cows designed in 2015. If you were to draw inspiration/copy portions of what another FRC team designed and marketed the product for profit, I'm sure giving credit where it's due is appropriate.

[FTC5110]

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

We will have to take a look at this. I haven't heard of any teams breaking the gears in the servos (because they are all metal vs the plastic ones of other servos) but if it starts to happen, we will make them available.

For reference we chewed through HS-645MG's far too often with gear tooth failures but never had any issues with HS-755MG. I guess we'll see what happens this season and I'm pleased to see you'd consider gearsets if needed.

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by kiettyyyy

The Digit MXP looks awfully familiar to what The Holy Cows designed in 2015. If you were to draw inspiration/copy portions of what another FRC team designed and marketed the product for profit, I'm sure giving credit where it's due is appropriate.

You are correct, this was our over site. The Digit was inspired by the great board that the Holy Cows used last season (minus the gyro, and locking connectors). The idea of putting 12 segment displays on the MXP port was and is a good one.

Our implementation is different as we use an I2C LED driver chip to drive the displays to keep the pins on the MXP open and available for the pass through.

We will update our website to reflect this credit.

[kiettyyyy]

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

You are correct, this was our over site. The Digit was inspired by the great board that the Holy Cows used last season (minus the gyro, and locking connectors). The idea of putting 12 segment displays on the MXP port was and is a good one.

Our implementation is different as we use an I2C LED driver chip to drive the displays to keep the pins on the MXP open and available for the pass through.

We will update our website to reflect this credit.

You must be mistaken. We also used the Holtek HT16K33 I2C LED driver. It's just hiding underneath the displays on ours.

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by kiettyyyy

You must be mistaken. We also used the Holtek HT16K33 I2C LED driver. It's just hiding underneath the displays on ours.

This is 100% my mistake. I saw the awesome board the The Holy Cows used in 2015 while at the Shenzhen off-season event this past year (how I missed it at champs when we were alliance partners is beyond me). We reached out a few times to discuss the design but didn't get a response.

We proceeded to design our own with no knowledge of the components of the board (we thought they were pin mapping). We found the HT16K33, as it is a low cost I2C LED driver that quite a few people use including Adafruit, and apparently also the Holy Cows design.

In the rush to release this before kickoff (it just barely made it), circling back with 1538 and giving appropriate credit is something that we did not do and I am deeply sorry for this. It was a mistake that I take full responsibility for.

In light of this we will be making sure to give credit for this board to the people that inspired it, Team 1538 / The Holy Cows and will work with them farther to try to rectify the mistake.

[JPL69]

Greg,

We are looking to use the Smart Servo with the roboRIO, but do not see any released specification that the roboRIO PWM signals will use the full 500 - 2500usec range that the Servo is rated for. Can you confirm that the Servo was tested to its full capabilities with the roboRIO?

If you do know the PWM range of the roboRIO can you let us know as well.

Thanks.