2008 KOP GTS

Technical Electrical
#1

Is it still possible to get the Gear Tooth Sensor Board that was included in the 2008 KOP? We are using one on the robot this year and I wanted to order some extras. Is anyone still using these boards? Is there something more recent that teams are using?

I looked up the ATS642LSH IC from Allegro Microsystems but it looks like you can only order the IC itself and not a board with the IC integrated. I’m not really interested in building up my own board.

Any suggestions on where to order these or suggestion for a viable alternative would be appreciated!

GTS.JPG
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GTS.JPG
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#2

Those boards were made specifically for the 2008 Kit of Parts and were never available anywhere else. Sorry.

#3

To begin with, I don’t believe they classify as a COTS item so you can’t use them.

Granted you can buy the Hall Effect Sensor, but that nice red PCB was custom made for FIRST and you can’t buy it commercially. Since you can’t buy it, it’s not COTS.

#4

Are you aware of any COTS products that would be a good replacement? Ideally something that would work with the GearTooth or Encoder classes in WPILib.

#5

Saw your post in the Hall Effect thread. For the record, I don’t think direction sensing ever actually worked with the 2008 GTS. If you look at the source for the GearTooth class in WPILib, the comments suggestion that the direction sensing was something to be worked out in the future.

/**
 * Alias for counter class.
 * Implement the gear tooth sensor supplied by FIRST. Currently there is no reverse sensing on
 * the gear tooth sensor, but in future versions we might implement the necessary timing in the
 * FPGA to sense direction.
 */

That comment may be out of date, but I wouldn’t count on it.

There’s similar products out there, but I have no idea how easily obtainable they are. Here’s an example:
http://www.spectecsensors.com/html_pages/quadrature-sensor.html

#6

Check out the Honeywell 1GT101DC. We used these in 2008 with pretty good success, and we’re using them again this year for speed sensors for our shooter.

http://sensing.honeywell.com/index.php?ci_id=4128&la_id=1&Ntk=si_all_products&N=1235&Ntt=1GT101DC

You can purchase them from Mouser or Digikey. They run around $40 a piece.