US Digital S4 Encoder Availability?

Technical Sensors
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Hello,

I’ve taken over as the lead electrical mentor for our team this year and I’m trying to get some encoders picked out and ordered. After a lot of reading here, it seems like the US Digital S4 series seems to be a pretty common choice among FRC teams and I think it would work for us. However, when I called US Digital to place an order (you can’t order them online), I was asked for my account info, and when I told them that I didn’t have one, they told me that since there were none “allocated to me” that I can’t order them.

Has anyone else run into this? Is there some other place to order these encoders, or do I need to start over on my encoder hunt?

Thanks

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Dunno on the S4s. If you can’t get any the Grayhill 63R is a similar encoder that is popular in FRC.

http://www.digikey.com/catalog/en/partgroup/63r/11554

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Craig,

Thanks for the head up on the Grayhills, I will take a look at those.

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Did you tell US Digital that you were a FIRST team?

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Yes, I did. Their first response was to buy them from Andymark (Andymark doesn’t sell the s4) and then they told me I couldn’t order them. Not exactly the best customer service I’ve ever had.

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See this thread from the offseason, specifically posts 14 and 20. I was concerned back then about the S4s. The writing may be on the wall for these…

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