Hi everyone! Happy December!
aaaaa it’s already December?
I hope the fall has been good to you all.
Here at AndyMark, we’ve been hard at work developing lots of new things for the 2023 FIRST Robotics Competition season, and we want to show some of them to you today. Back again this year is Brett/Bert/Bretterson/Brettererererson on the AndyMark Shopping Network with some featured products and plenty of humor. We also want to catch you up on some things we’ve soft-released throughout the late summer and fall, too.
AndyMark West Coast Drive Chassis
We’ve been working on this one for years. The AndyMark West Coast Drive Chassis is everything you need to build a robust, 2x1 aluminum box tube West Coast Drive chassis. With this product, there’s no need to cut tubes to length or drill your own mounting or bearing clearance holes - everything is fully machined into the side rails and end rails. Simply assemble your chassis, and you’re ready to hit the carpet (once you add a control system and motors, of course.)
This chassis can be configured in either chain-in-tube, or chain-out-of-tube powertrain setups. To accommodate this, we’ve created special WCD variants of our EVO Slim transmissions that allow for the drive sprockets to be contained within the gearboxes. We’ve also updated the mounting patterns on the Shaft Plates of these gearboxes for more sensible mounting to WCD platforms. We’re also working on a special flipped-motor variant, which we’ll release more details on soon.
The corners of the frame are held together with a combination of our super robust 90 degree corner gussets, as well as brand new tube plugs for 2x1 tubing - which will be available separately on their own soon.
We’re making this product available in many 8WD-based configurations for this season, everything from frame-only versions all the way to a full setup with 6" AndyMark Performance Wheels.
Compact Elevator Bearing and Structure Kits
The AndyMark Compact Elevator system is our next generation line of products to help FIRST Robotics Competition teams create high quality, reliable and robust linear motion mechanisms, such as an elevator or extension arm. We’re offering several different bundles of our Compact Elevator Bearing Kits paired with structural components curated for specific linear mechanism applications.
Currently available as powertrain-ready kits we’re offering bundles of bearing kits, tubing and structural hardware for both 1x1 and 2x1 tubing sizes in 1 and 2 stage elevator (or other linear mechanism) configurations. All options are available with and without .060" wall tubing included for teams utilizing 1x1 or 2x1 tubing from other vendors. The hardware included in these bundles is compatible with tubing with a wall thickness of up to .125", making it compatible with a wide variety of extrusions in the market.
Coming early next year will be powertrain solutions to help teams reach new heights with our Compact Elevator Bearing System!
Custom Color Compliant Wheels
Custom 2022 CyberTooth 2.25" and 3" versions shown.
You’ve asked… for years… so we’re finally working on this. AndyMark is strongly considering making a limited number of Compliant Wheels available in colors that they are not usually available in. Based on customer feedback, teams have indicated they like our squishiest 35A durometer wheels but would like ones that better match their branding.
To facilitate this, the link above directs to an interest form to indicate what colors and sizes you are interested in. For the 2023 season, we are only considering making custom versions of our 1/2" hex bore, 2.25", 3" and 4" Compliant Wheels. At this time, we are not offering other bores, or our non-plastic cored 2" wheels in these custom options. We need to ensure there is enough interest before moving forward and finalizing which colors and sizes to choose.
To help identify these wheels, they will ship with a white center plastic core, unlike the standard black cores shown in the above examples from the 2022 CyberTooth robot, as well as our standard offerings.
Form submissions to gauge interest will close on 12/15/22. Shortly thereafter we will open up the most popular ones for sale, and you will be notified via email to place an order. Wheels will ship mid-January.
If there is significant interest in this program we may run a second round in January / February and we may be able to lower the price from what is shown on the interest form.
Collar Clamps… A Lot Of Them
When we brought high strength and affordable 1/2" hex collar clamps with bearing bosses on each side to market a few years ago, the community response was overwhelmingly positive. However, we heard two pieces of feedback: “More, and please give us colour options!”
So we’re doing exactly that. We’re greatly expanding lineup to include both one piece and two piece options, in both high strength and thinner lightweight versions (with high quality hardware!) in the following bores:
Each of these options are a sensible fractional thickness, have high quality hardware, and feature bearing bosses on both sides that are appropriately sized for whichever bearings they’re likely to run against. We also have a few more options for smaller shafts available on our website too; including 6mm Round, so be sure to check those out too!
Additionally, for 2023 we’re offering fun anodized colours of our most popular collar clamp, 1 part high strength 1/2 Hex, am-1526 in the following new colours:
- Purple (my favourite)
- Black
- Blue
- Gold
- Green
- Red
Oops, all Gears!
It’s finally happening - we’re in the middle of converting our entire line of hex bore spur gears to be symmetrical with bearing bosses on each side We’re expanding our offerings too - including the mythical 85T 32DP 1/2" Hex Bore gear that @Justin_Foss has asked us to make for years. All of these gears are made with high strength steel, many of which are available with aggressive weight relief features to keep things strong while still being a reasonable weight.
4IN BB Mecanum Wheels
We announced these on our site earlier this year, but we’re right at the finish line with our brand new 4" Mecanum Wheels to be available! With twelve rollers, all supported by high strength ball bearings and steel sheet metal, this wheel is highly optimized for FTC robots. We’ve been working really, really hard on this one, and expect to be able to open them up for sale in the next week.
I’ve had the opportunity to drive several FTC robots with many different wheels in the market, and these are the smoothest-feeling ones I’ve ever played with.
MK ES17-12 12V Batteries
Earlier this summer, we brought back the ability for teams to purchase MK Batteries for their FRC robots through us - based purely on customer requests. We brought them back so that they were more accessible to more customers in the marketplace.
Time-On Meter
This neat little gadget mechanically counts hours when it has power. Typically found on farm equipment for timing maintenance schedules, it can be used on robots to gauge how much time your robot has been powered across it’s entire life. This can be useful for seeing when certain components fail or wear out, or just keeping track for fun. You might be surprised how many hours you spend with your robot!
On my team CyberTooth 3940, we’ve used this exact timer since 2018 to figure out what wears out when, and have used it to develop a preventative maintenance schedule around these findings. You’d be surprised what wears out past 200 hours of awake time on a robot!
Driver Station Heads Up Display 7 in. LCD Monitor
This monitor has been tested and used in FRC Competition. In the words of a mentor, “It’s really perfect as a small and lightweight way to get an additional screen for your FRC Driver Station.” This works perfectly as a heads-up display or a monitor for a camera feed or robot status. The LCD backlighting makes for a highly visible display that isn’t a struggle to see, even without the sun shade.
The display can be powered via standard 12V barrel plug, the same size as the ones on the FRC Radio. A Stick of Churro makes a great stand to elevate it to eye level.
A Couple Gearbox Updates
We made some updates to our long-standing tried and true single reduction gearbox, the CIMple box. New in V2 this gearbox has more user friendly mounting options on a 1 in. pitch for #10 screws on both the mounting flanges and the face of the gearbox. The mounting flanges can be oriented in either direction based on user preference. There are 5 different shaft options to best suit your application. It also uses a “Standard” weight relieved 56T gear and has options for either CIM Style or Falcon 500 inputs out of the box.
We also created a “what’s old is new again!” style gearbox, the Super Sonic Slim. This a line of single-speed gearboxes based on our last generation of weight relieved aluminum shifter plates. This offers a powerful, lightweight solution to create robust drive trains for competition robots. The Super Sonic Slim uses a combination of AndyMark Product lines including the Super Sonic Shifter, EVO, and ToughBox. Weight relieved versions of “Standard” Steel gears are used to make ratio swaps easy and painless as well as maintain compatibility with other gears that teams may already have.
This is the first wave of a bunch of things we have been working on for this season - less than half of the SKUs we plan to have available for this season. Keep an eye out for more product announcements closer to kickoff this coming year for some surprises!
As always, keep an eye on our new products page for many more even new fun things!
Sincerely,
-Nick
