What rugged sensors do you use?

[Jon236]

This season our team had issues with sensor durability. The Vex ultrasonic sensors (or any others) didn't hold up well with colliding robots (even with the sensors themselves protected). Momentary switches wired to the Program/Reset pins on the RC caused resets when high-G forces were encountered. On the other hand, the Greyhill encoders worked well as long as side-loading of the shaft was avoided and the encoder itself well protected. Magnetic proximity switches worked much better than limit switches used in previous seasons.

What experience can you share from your build season? Are there any makes and models you've used that are superior that you can share with the CD community?

[Qbranch]

To name a few, the parallax ultrasonic modules are very robust and lasted even when perched atop the first extension of our elevator. Also, the US digital analog encoders were much more durable than expected despite their small size.

Above all, if you ever need a multi-turn analog pot, Vishay's are unbelieveably durable... we had one accidentally take the torque of the elevator comming down when a set screw was set wrong, and amazingly it still worked!

-q