Hey All,
I’m looking to start designing a little project, and I’m looking for examples of elevators used this year for the game. Whether it’s slanted like 3683, or straight up like 254 and 1323, I’m just looking for examples so I can screw around and try and build one.
TIA 
Check out the COTS elevators on the market:
The best way to get started with elevators is to adapt one of these to your design. Even though they’re kits, you still have to choose the height, width, number of stages, mounting, gearing – plus whatever method you choose to get electricity and/or pneumatics to the far end. Just assembling one in CAD is a challenging task.
I also highly recommend checking out 4414.
3357 COMETS had a pretty cool elevator this year too. Similar to 4414, it was a slanted elevator with an arm on the end, but they did it a little different. Here’s their cad, and here’s the explanation of the elevator. Their robot reveal also has a nice slow panning shot of the elevator. One of my favorite things they do is use slider blocks instead of bearing blocks. I think these are more stable since they provide more contact area between stages to reduce wobble, and they’re definitely cheaper. We had great success with these instead of bearing blocks on our telescoping arm this year, but we don’t have any definitive evidence that they are mechanically superior.
I’ve also been starting to work on an elevator myself recently, so I’m interested in what people come up with on this thread.
This is a onshape collection of different bearing blocks that are used for elevators - Elevator Examples
I wouldn’t recommend the thrifty elevator much we’ve had issues with the screws that hold the bearings coming out of the block or bending
Good to know. Do you have any photos or other information? I imagine TTB might be interested too.
There is a solution to this that 2930 employed this season after we had the same issues after our first event.
We used these low-profile shoulder bolts from McMaster with the 1/4 shoulder; 5/8 is the proper length. We drilled out the tapped holes in the bearing blocks to 1/4, inserted the McMaster shoulder bolts, and secured them on the other side with a Nyloc nut. We never had another failure the entire rest of the season.
I do not have access to our robot right now, but as soon as I do, I will also insert a picture if anyone requests it.
6081 uses a pneumatically actuated tilted elevator design. We decided on the Thriftybot 2 stage elevator, super fast on two neos running 3:1, and it’s relatively light when using light maxtube. We use the tilted up position to shelf load and for frame perimeter at the beginning of matches, and the down position for scoring. Simple yet effective. Our behind the bumpers goes into a bit more detail.
Interesting. We’ve put over 100 hours of drive practice and over 130 matches on our thriftybot elevator and never had this problem.
I’m interested in seeing the picture, when you have a chance.
This is also pretty much exactly what we did as well, we saw some bending of the screws with the loads we were applying (some even sheared off). We went with larger shoulder bolts with low profile heads from McMaster and a nylock nut on the other side/Loctite. We highly recommend thrifty elevator kits for any team looking into purchasing a COTS elevator.
full disclaimer that 7157 is a part of team thrifty
This is an issue some teams saw depending on the weight / length of the arms extending out this past season. An immediate fix that worked for most teams was the drill out the 10-32 hole and either re-tap for 1/4-20 or use a thru hole for 1/4-20 as there is space on the back of the block for a locknut. You can use the same bearings as it has a 1/4" hole so it’s a pretty simple fix.
We are in the process of converting the existing block design over to use a 1/4-20 bolt and we’re also modifying the hole pattern so that grid pattern tubing can be easily used as well. These were the 2 biggest issues we saw with Thrifty Elevator last season and we want to get them resolved to prevent issues for teams in the future.
It’s worth noting that the COTSCommercial, off-the-shelf elevator block revolution developed BEFORE it was known the 2023 game would have such massive horizontal extensions, and I think we saw that these products were used in ways the designers maybe didn’t quite intend.
My own team saw issues with the small bearings on the WCPWest Coast Products clamping blocks breaking which is why WCPWest Coast Products now sells them with longer shoulder bolts and 2 bearings instead of 1. Just because 3512 built a tilted elevator with a chunky carriage+arm+intake (~25lbs) for 2023 and saw issues with the clamping blocks doesn’t mean I’m out here calling for people not to buy them.
Just my 2¢, but its always worth looking inward before coming online and tarnishing the name of companies, particularly FRCFIRST Robotics Competition suppliers who have a rather thankless job. Yes they (and all companies) need to be held accountable, but let’s be introspective and have some tact while doing so.
our team tried out this discontinued andymark one: https://www.andymark.com/products/2x1-single-stage-hd-elevator-bearing-and-structure-kit
It wasn’t the best but it kinda worked alright
I didn’t remember that that was our conclusion when I first posted (sorry folks). This is 10/10 the biggest reason why our elevator’s bearing screws striped and why other teams have had absolutly no problems with it.
We had a single shoulder bolt bend on our elevator last season.
Here you go!
PXL_20231024_023314875|666x500
Left to right, it’s assembled as such: Nyloc 10/32 nut, TTB bearing block with 1/4" hole drilled out, TTB spacer, TTB bearing (1/4" ID, 3/4" OD), McMaster shoulder bolt. If you’d like any other info feel free to ask!
It is interesting…this failure mode makes me appreciate how reliable the AndyMark elevator parts were for us this year. There are a variety of things I don’t love about them (not half-inch-increment lateral spacing, gussets don’t work with MAXtube, each stage adds >1" of height), but the cantilever distance for the equivalent bearings is about as small as possible.
Does anyone have some examples of different ways to do rigging for elevators? ie different rigging paths, rigging materials, and styles of rigging
