VEXpro New Products 2023-2024

[James_Tonthat]

VEX Robotics is excited to announce some new products designed and engineered for use in the FIRST Robotics Competition for the 2024 season and beyond. We will provide an update here once these new products are in stock on vexrobotics.com.

217-9042 - Grip Lock Wheel 4" (4-pack)

The Grip Lock Wheel is optimized for low pile carpet applications. When compared to rigid wheels made of aluminum, plastic, or rubber, the Grip Lock Wheel greatly improves the contact patch with the carpet, increasing traction and providing shock absorption.

These wheels were inspired by the TJ2 (FRC88) team and their novel TPU Grippy Tires

Technical Highlights:

• 4” nominal diameter
• Durable Glass Filled Nylon hub
• Compatible with major swerve modules using 4" wheels (MK4i and SwerveX)
• Does not require fork removal for wheel replacement on MK4i modules.

217-9057 - VersaRoller Grip Tube 2” (1-pack)

The VersaRoller Grip Tube is a cut-to-length intake roller constructed with silicone pre-stretched over 2” OD polycarbonate round extrusion. The 2” roller allows for a greater surface speed as well as a larger tangent contact, helping to intake and manipulate objects quickly and efficiently. This product makes building true “touch it, own it” roller intakes a breeze.

Technical Highlights:

• 30” length
• 1.875” ID, 2.1” OD
• Wrapped in soft black silicone

217-9038 - VersaRoller Hub 2” (2-pack)

The new VersaRoller Hub was developed to revolutionize how fast a good, robust intake can be constructed. It comes with a 30T HTD 5mm pulley that keys directly into the hub, making power transmission simple. The new hub is able to work with both “dead” and “live” axles to provide maximum versatility.

It provides a hub option for our new 2” VersaRoller system that only needs a saw and a T15 driver to create a custom length intake roller.

Technical Highlights:

• Comes with a 30T HTD 5mm pulley
• Attaches to tube with an internal, expanding steel plate
• Compatible with ⅜” or ½” round dead shafts or ½” ThunderHex live shafts. (not compatible with true ½” Hex Shaft)
• Compatible with most common FRC roller materials with a 1.875” ID

276-9041 - 2" Mecanum Wheels v2 (4 pack)

The new 2" Mecanum Wheel v2 provides a good all-round vectored intake wheel for game object intaking and control. This new iteration significantly increases the distance between the hub and rollers, nearly eliminating all dead spots. This seamlessly integrates into your robot’s intake system. The diameter of this wheel matches the diameter of the new Omni-Directional Wheels and VersaRoller Grip Tube.

Technical Highlights:

• Near seamless contact patch
• 2” effective OD
• ½” Hex Bore
• Designed specifically for intake applications
• Rubberized rollers for extra grip

276-9044 - 2" Omni-Directional Wheels (4-pack)

The new 2" Omni-Directional wheel is uniquely designed as a single-row wheel, offering flexibility in spacing. This design also reduces the wheel’s thickness, making it easily fit into smaller spaces.This design removes the hub material near the outer diameter, ensuring increased roller contact with game elements. When used with a hexagonal shaft, this wheel is indexable in 15 degree increments to increase your overall contact patch. The diameter of this wheel matches the diameter of the new Mecanum Wheels and VersaRoller Grip Tube.

Technical Highlights:

• Indexable in 15 degree increments
• Near seamless contact patch
• 2” effective OD
• ½” Hex Bore
• Designed specifically for intake applications
• Rubberized rollers for extra grip

One Quick Note: These products currently will only be shown on the US site. Product pages will be made available on international websites at a later date.

[Eliot]

What plastic type is used in the carpet wheels? How long are they expected to last?

[bkahl]

TPU 85A durometer.

We hope to have more information and documentation available for the Grip Lock wheels soon. We conducted some traction testing comparing this wheel to various wheels popularly used in drivetrains currently. We are still compiling the data and making it presentable. Stay tuned!

[Strategic]

Are wheel treads for the Grip Lock wheels going to be sold separately and at what price? While these look interesting, if we have to spend $120 every time we need to change treads, it’s really not going to be worth the extra performance no matter how good.

[cmwilson13]

I do appreciate this after having experienced the slideshow those features can cause
.

[CEF]

That Grip Tube is really interesting… But, you mentioned the silicone being stretched over polycarbonate. How does that stretching survive being cut? (and, how do you cut that?)

[Sidoti]

I can’t say for certain for this product, but based on my experience with silicone surgical tubing manually applied to VersaRoller in the past, it actually cuts really nicely.

You’d expect it to want to chunk away or peel apart, but as long as you have a sharp blade and take care, it cuts beautifully.

[parzival111]

The “Stretch” happens radially. So you take a silicone tube and stretch it around a PC tube with an OD larger than the ID of the silicone. This retains the rubber quite well.

For cutting the versaroller grip tube, we’ve just used our bandsaw here at the shop, and it cuts through both the rubber and polycarbonate great!

This is fresh off the bandsaw:

This is after deburring

[s3529]

We have another entry into the wild world of Swerve Drive Wheels.

(I made this as a joke, if there is a more technically correct ordering of hardest to softest, I would gladly make a real version.)

[_mT]

Any updates about new batch of Falcon500 motors?
Is there any estimated time for the new batch?

[abc]

Let’s put these wheels on F1 cars!

[Sidoti]

This might honestly be the most exciting set of products that you guys have released in a long while. I appreciate the post, but I’d personally love some more information.

I know there has been testing done on the Grip Lock wheels and I look forward to when you share those results. I’d be most interested in the coefficient of friction between the wheels and common materials seen on an FRC field, and how those stack up with other wheels. Additionally, how well these wheels wear.

Could we also get more information on the VersaRoller Hub? How does it actually attach? Is it one time use? Am I going to need to buy a new one every time we install one and then need to remove it? How does this internal expanding steel plate compare to the traditional method of using a bolt from the outside of the tube? It seems like these would slip out? What happens if only 2/3 of the bolts are tightened and the 3rd somehow got loose? How does that affect the pull out force? If the roller is held still, what is the maximum torque it can handle before slipping inside the tube?

Sorry for the barrage of questions and giving y’all some homework to do. And if you don’t have a way of acquiring these numbers, I understand.
These look great and knowing what obstacles needed to be overcome to get these products actually released, I appreciate it even more.

[cbale2000]

The Grip Lock wheels look impressive, especially after seeing TJ2’s experiences with their similar TPU wheels. That said, I’ll echo what others have said about the durability concerns. It’s hard to justify a $120 set of wheels if you’re replacing them more than once per event.

@_mT

Any updates about new batch of Falcon500 motors?
Is there any estimated time for the new batch?

You might want to read this thread for the answer to that question.

[SonofBeans]

@Sidoti

Additionally, how well these wheels wear

It would be sweet to get a video of a chassis moving, similar to the 2015 mechanum testing

[splatnt]

@Sidoti

How does it actually attach?

It looks like there is a steel plate that expands/folds out when screws are tightened through it:

@James_Tonthat

Attaches to tube with an internal, expanding steel plate

[bobbysq]

@James_Tonthat

These wheels were inspired by the TJ2 (FRC88) team and their novel TPU Grippy Tires

Has the team received any compensation for their design being sold? I can only assume they have, seeing how seriously Vex takes IP.

[ijensen]

The design was inspired by the design from 88, but visually its definitely not the same design being sold. VEX may have worked with the team to come up with a design made for non-3D-printing processes, and I’m glad VEX is transparent here in saying they were inspired by it, instead of leaving us to wonder if they were… among other things already mentioned.

[parzival111]

Hey Brandon, we’ve been working hard on these products for a while and are super excited about them!

Grip lock wheel testing is coming soon.

For the new VersaRoller Hub, I can answer some of your questions.

• It attaches to the tube via an expanding spring steel plate. This plate sits between two plastic hubs, which compress the plate and force the integrated fingers to expand into the tube material. This creates a strong connection between the hub and the tube.
• It is not one time use. The metal plate is made from spring steel, so it springs back to its initial shape when you unscrew the clamping screws and remove the hub from the tube. From our testing so far, there is no noticeable change in shape after many install/removal cycles.
• We have tested the pull out force of new hub in our new VersaRoller Grip Tube. It can take over 300lbs of force to remove the hub when the screws were tightened to 1 ft*lb.
• I was curious about the change in pull out force if one of the screws got loose, so I did another pull test, but this time only installed 2 of the 3 screws (tightened to 1 ft*lb). That test had a pullout force approximately 2/3 of the ones measured prior.
• I tested the torque the hubs could handle with a short roller with the ThunderHex adapters installed. I locked one thunderhex shaft in the vice and attached another independent shaft to a torque wrench. I measured over 25 N*m of torque before the hubs slipped in the tube.

Torque test setup:

Tube after torque test:

Pull test setup: [Scale shows kg]

Tube after pull test:

Pull test with 2 screws: [Scale shows kg]

[CEF]

What’s the width on the pulley on the Versaroller hub? I know it has a 5mm tooth pitch, but is the pulley 9 mm wide (or something else?) Wasn’t clear from the drawing.

Since it’s glass-filled Nylon, can I presume that the flange won’t pop off?

And, will the roller work without attaching the pulley in case we only drive it from one end?

[parzival111]

The pulley is designed for 9mm wide HTD 5M belts. The tooth profile of the pulley is 10.5mm wide to allow in belt width variation.

The flange is part of the injection molded pulley so it should not have any issues staying attached.

You can choose to attach 0, 1, or 2 pulleys per roller hub. If you use the thunderhex adapter you might choose not to use any pulleys. If you want all your belts on one side of your intake you might choose to double up pulleys on one side and use none on the other side. The 3/8" Round Dead Shaft Idler example on the page shows no pulley mounted, and the 1/2" Round Dead Shaft Belt Driven shows one pulley mounted.