Hi all. I want to try to make better use of the available vouchers this year. Some are easy - AM, Rev, no problem using those. I wish we got one for CTRE! WCP would be nice, too.
But what do you all typically use your Automation Direct voucher for?
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They have a wide line of pneumatic products
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They also sell zip ties and zip tie accessories.
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I like checking the Spectrum Voucher Recommendations (2023 Spectrum FIRST Choice & Voucher Recommendations) for order ideas.
Last year we used our Automation Direct voucher on wire duct. We hadn’t utilized that before for wire routing, and it was a nice item to pick up. I think I spent the whole voucher on it, so enough wire duct for a few robots.
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Ah, good to know. We haven’t used pneumatics for a few years, but always keep it in mind for the proper application. This year could be the year we go back to it.
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Gonna shill my favorite use of the digikey voucher, the 4337 angle bracket. Little tiny angle with a 0.196" hole (ready for 3/16" rivets and 10-32 hardware). Super handy to randomly mount stuff. I like to keep a hundred or so on hand.
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Ditto on 4337s.
If your tastes skew embedded, Digi-Key also stocks things like the Pi Pico and many popular Adafruit boards. Get them!
Digi-Key also sells the microswitch needed to make the Interact Switch, and probably has the headphone jack cable too. It’s an easy print to make your special ed department’s day (similar commercial switches retail for $65). Would also be fun on your operator panel. Everyone loves a big red button.
TE Connectivity’s samples will get you some neat things as well. Lots of imitation PowerPole and SB connector options that, while you should study the 2024 electrical rules closely, you could get value out of.
Misumi is a small one but they seem to have a good selection of industrial supply items.
AutomationDirect sells a lot of small neat things for pneumatics. If you use them, save a ton of space and weight and use their regulator/gauge setup. It’s tiny. They also have tools and some really tough limit switches. We’ll use the heck out of ours.
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Other useful items from there though
Bulk wire for various gauges. You can use Ethernet cables as convenient sensor data cables to keep wiring minimal. We did similar after figuring out that’s what Lego would do with NXT and EV3 data wires being multi wire cables that connected to phone jacks. To elaborate further in this case its using a 6 wire cable for analog power, power supply to a sensor and then I2C connection. But this could also be used for something like 5v, Ground and then A and B for 2 encoders, etc.
https://www.automationdirect.com/adc/shopping/catalog/bulk_wire_-a-_cable
https://www.automationdirect.com/adc/shopping/catalog/bulk_wire_-a-_cable/data_-a-_communication_cable#
And finally the other wiring solutions besides zip ties (which there’s nothing wrong with that method at all, just DIN rail and other things are good to use as well.)
https://www.automationdirect.com/adc/shopping/catalog/wiring_solutions
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Shout out to the Automation Direct DN-WS. Genuinely a “better mousetrap” for wire strippers.
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Automation Direct is great for pneumatics. Especially the mini stuff. Highly recommend TU14 to mount gauges close together. They even have page for them.
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Three things we bought from Automation Direct last year that proved very useful were:
- Jacketed 3-conductor 22AWG wire - perfect for “PWM” style cable making (such as for Thrifty absolute encoders) and connecting up LED strips. They have a fair number of other kinds of wire too.
- Spiral wrap for bundling cables (used extensively on our arm)
- Finally bought a cable tie gun which the students seem to enjoy using
Will second the recommendation on AD’s tiny Nitra pneumatics parts - we’ve used those regularly as well. Can’t beat the size and weight.
TE Connectivity is a strange voucher since you’re limited to things that are available through their samples program, and only in sample quantities. I ended up with a large selection of heat shrink tubing last year. We’ve also used their SB50 knockoffs for chargers, inverters, and other non-robot applications, but we stay with Anderson on batteries and robots; we consider that too critical to chance using a clone.
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When does the DigiKey voucher appear? I got all the way to the screen where I enter my credit card information and still don’t see the voucher being applied to the cost of the parts or the shipping. I was using my personal email address, which is already linked to a DigiKey account I had set up previously.
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I had a similar issue, along with a weird order of applying the voucher and logging in and wondering if it forgot about the voucher, but trying to log in again would get stuck. Looking at my bank statement, looks like the voucher didn’t even get applied correctly. Bummer.
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Hi Philso,
I’ve been lurking around these forums for the past year and finally joined because of your question. So as a bit of background, I work at DigiKey and am heavily involved with the Voucher. Currently the voucher is a manual process for us, meaning we have employees that manually add the discount to every order that comes in. Because of this, when you are checking out the discount doesn’t show up on your order and is only applied after it has been submitted. If you run into any questions in regards to it, please reach out to [email protected] and I’ll most likely be the one that replies back to you. Hopefully that helps clear it up. If you do have any other questions, I put together a PDF this year on how to use the voucher because we were getting a ton of questions and i can send that out to you if you’d like, just reach out to that email and i’ll reply back with it.
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Hey Christophe,
Reach out to the email that i mentioned in the post above and i’ll see if I can get that voucher applied for you.
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@TFossDK Just wanted to drop in and say thanks for Digikey’s support of FIRST Robotics. Super awesome!
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Thanks for your explanation. It is understandable that the purchasing system does not naturally support the vouchers. Thanks also for DigiKey for going to such lengths to support teams and for supporting me throughout my career doing electronic design.
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Thanks for sending the PDF instructions, Travis. They worked perfectly. Several hours after submitting my order, I received an email with an amended invoice showing that the voucher had been applied.
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