Happy New Year!
Competition Robot Parts is pleased to announce a new product for the 2020 season: Version 3 of our elevator bearing kit!
http://www.competitionrobotparts.com/shop/elevator-kits/elevator-bearing-kit-v3/
The kit provides the parts needed for the bearing blocks for one stage of a typical rectangular tubing or t-slot extrusion elevator. The bearing blocks can mount to 1x1, 2x1, 3x1 or any other rectangular tubing with one side being 1in.
This roller kit is the smallest, lightest, and least expensive solution for FRC elevator bearings on the market.
What’s changed since V2?
- Shielded ball bearings are used instead of Delrin rollers for lower-friction motion and increased service life.
- Individual bearings support the lateral and thrust axes for further reduced friction.
- Aluminum blocks on either side of the tubing support the bearings instead of aluminum plates for easier assembly and reduced footprint.
- Stage spacing increased from 0.5in to 0.75in (still maintains elevator stage widths in increments of 0.5in to line up with pre-drilled tubing).
The kits are in stock NOW at competitionrobotparts.com!
18 Likes
Nice.
Billet parts like this are definitely the better way to do bearings in a COTS application versus plates.
Glad this is on the market for teams!
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This is a great price point for everything that is included. Very thrifty. Nice work 
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Do you have any photos of the production components?
I really like how it’s all one piece that supports both the bearings on the narrow edge and the bearings on the wide edge.
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These look fabulous. I do have one suggestion. Over the past couple of years we (1114) have gotten a few emails from teams saying who have bought elevator kits but don’t know how to use them. Some examples:
My team is putting together the 2x1 Elevator Kit and we were just wondering about recommendations on how to get the stage to move up and down.
I was wondering what the easiest methods were to lift an elevator using the elevator kit. We’ve watched some videos online and have researched it but we can’t seem to find a clear explanation. Thank you so much!
Having a full write up (and potential video) on how to integrate your kits into a design would be very useful to less experienced teams trying to use your products.
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Sweet almost makes me want to build another elevator.
Please dear Dog GDC no.
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Very Nice!
The two bosses that square the billet to the elevator tube will be a major improvement for match drilling the mounting holes in the tubing compared to the old version plate brackets.
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What a great, innovative product at an amazing price point! We used V2 in 2018 and were pretty happy with them. This product will definitely be on the top of my list when the next elevator game comes around.
Here’s one from my phone. I’ll try to grab a few better ones this evening.
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Can you provide any details with how this part is manufacturered? I’m a big fan of this design.
You might consider offering a longer version with two sets of front-to-back bearings. That way you wouldn’t need to install them in mirrored pairs. Teams could use such a version to make telescoping arms, as shown on Page 4 of Vex’s version: https://content.vexrobotics.com/vexpro/pdf/217-4399-20180116.PDF
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If I had to guess, I would say this is made in 1 operation on a cnc lathe with live tooling. A bar feeder would allow the machine to run unattended for quite a while before a new stick of bar stock would need to be loaded or tools changed.
There are some example CAD models of elevator designs up on the “Design Tools” section of CRP’s website.
I have to say… we bought some of these at the beginning of the season to use in our climber, and thus far are very happy with them. A lot easier to install properly than the plates that other vendors sell!
I second this! With our design, we’ll need something like this on the bottom set of bearings to hold everything together. It’s a low-load application, so we’re going to 3D print something for it, but it’d be great to have that option right out of the box!
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