Before the new release of COTS products in the past month by REV, AndyMark, and The Thrifty Bot (TTB), WCP was in my opinion the go-to option for COTS elevator bearing blocks for manipulator-mounted elevators. It may be hard to gauge the performance differences between these new products, since they are all on pre-order, but if you had a choice, which would you say is the superior elevator bearing block kit?
WCP on left, AndyMark middle left, TTB middle right, REV on right
I was going to include TTB, ut I do not believe they sell the bearing blocks for their Thrifty Elevator as a standalone product (I may be wrong). They have the bearing blocks for their telescoping tube kits, which my team used this past year, and they have their new Thrifty Elevator, but I couldn’t find the bearing blocks for their Thrifty Elevator as a standalone product on the site.
Was really happy to see WCP come out with the inline bearing blocks that have all .75 OD bearings. I’ve cracked WAY to many .5OD bearings over the years on climbers and elevators we try to avoid them at all costs.
Not sure about driving that timing belt yet (although that part is certainly compact) but all the rigging being 2 big timing belts and 2 clamps is really nice over dealing with rope. The Andymark and TTB ones have parts that get in the way of the belts, so for now we will stick with the side-mount style.
Memes aside, they’re all 1000x better than most of the custom solutions I’ve seen over the years. If anyone needs to make an elevator, they should seriously consider using a COTS bearing block.
We have a whole pile of Rev (formerly Competition Robot Parts) elevator blocks, so that’s what we would use. Back when we got them, the only other options were some fairly complicated to order and bulky vex ones, or the old bulky AndyMark ones. With all of the new ones, I really don’t know what I would buy if we needed to buy them - it might depend on what’s in stock and where we’re making a purchase from that week!
I prefer thriftybot’s kit because it’s an entire solution. It comes with cfs, pulleys, and more. I know the questions was only about bearing blocks but I think the whole picture matters. The reason I didn’t mention WCP’s full kit is because if I remember correctly there’s a new version coming soon ™
I think it comes down to the game and the game piece we have to manipulate. How much weight do we have to move and what kind of manipulation of game piece must be done. Is the lift smacking into field structures?
Light weight or heave duty.
