Post Competition and Pre-competition needs for 271

[Chubtoad]

Does anyone have any double-solenoid valves? durin the semi-finals at LI a robot stuck their grabber into our eleectronics, pulled the lead off of one of our Fischer Price motors (robot still ran thanks to 2 motor per tire drive system) tore a hole in the pneumatic hose and DESTROYED one of our double solenoids, supposedly there will be replacements at the next competition but we want to make sure and we dont want to have to wait for them to open up the parts booth to start repairs. We also want to have extras in case. I contacted FIRST about getting others, they sent me to SMC, SMC said they don't stock them and that to order them would be 4-6weeks from Japan, and then they said to contact the two biggest SMC distributers, which neither had them. We would like to get them by the end of this week so we know we'll have them for New Haven. Anyone info can be posted here or directed to my email chubtoad@chubtoad.net
Thanks!!

[fast frank]

please help us, it would be nice if our robot worked at new haven

[Pamela]

Thursday at New Haven stop by 166's pit area and we'll see what we can do for ya. We packed (I think) all the extra pneumatics from the kit and our mech room even though we aren't using them so we may be able to help you out there.

[dlavery]

If any of the other sources don't work, you can try either Lanier Engineering or Motion Industries. I have used them both in previous years to get pneumatics spares, including the SMC double solenoid valves (specifically, I got these through the Lanier outlet in Newport News, VA). They usually have the parts in stock, and will ship over night. Good luck!

-dave

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I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion.
-- Albert Einstein

[Chubtoad]

Team 166, thank you very much for your offer and you will probably get a visit from us!

Thank you dave I contacted Lanier and they do not stock SMC but they are in the processes of finding out which Herion valve would be equivalent. While this does not help the borken one, we built a second robot and were looking for a place to buy similar solenoids to power our grabbers on that for practice.. A lot of the problem with us finding a team that has extras is that the double solenoid from last year is slightly different then the one from this year. What really stinks is that once we get to New haven we are going to have a hard time adding protection to our parts because we are so close to the weight limit. When we shipped the bot, two scales at our school read a pound and a half under, while when we got to LI the scale read a pound and a half over so we had to take off some weight, we have no idea where else we can take off weight, hopefully we can safely take off a pound and add protection. I'm sure these solenoids aren't cheap and we wouoldn't want to make a habit of having to replace them.

If anyone else knows their team, or another team has extras (these year's kit had TWO double solenoids) if you could pass on this thread to them, or have them contact me (email and AIM is in user info) That would be a big help!
THANK YOU EVERYONE