As everyone who competes in vex robotics knows, buying robot parts is not cheap. I’ve been searching for awhile for websites where parts are legal to buy but at a much cheaper cost. I’ve come across robosource.net but that’s pretty much it. Do any teams know of any alternative websites that are legal for use and are much cheaper prices?
Not really. I really like robosource. Most of the Vex official parts are only sold by vex or official vex resellers. Which means the price is pretty fixed.
Occasionally you can get good deals on ebay. Used parts etc
Some parts are identical elsewhere but are commodity things like rubber bands, nylon spacers, screws, lock nuts, and the like.
But motors, metal, and electronics are solely through Vex and their resellers.
The biggest difference I’ve noticed is shipping price. I sometimes pick a vendor just based on shipping costs. If I’m not in a hurry, free shipping for orders over $50 at Robot Mesh is the way to go. But for ovetnight shipping, another vendor may ne cheaper.
We have been liking Robot Mesh lately, the free shipping is great and the parts usually arrive fairly quickly.
If you are buying cortex, joystick, etc. for yourself and you have time to be patient, you can probably find a really good deal on ebay (at least you used to be able to). Anything that can be bought 3rd party, use robosource, like you said. Everything else, use robotmesh and save on shipping.
That’s about the best you can do unfortunately.
cheapest chargers I could find…