Now that we have the long-awaited high-strength gears (thank you!), here’s a couple of related requests.
A large number of our high-load situations couple a 12-tooth gear with an 84-tooth gear. We have the new 12’s (thank you) but could really use a double thick 84 tooth gear
Also, we’ve collected several million smaller gears buying the 84-tooth gears we need. It would be nice to be able to buy a 4- or 8-pack of just the gear size we need. You could delete the SKU for the assortment pack, as far as we are concerned. (Probably a good strategy for competition teams and a bad one for hobbyists. I guess you can’t please everyone…)
A related request – the ability to buy sprockets by size (like a kit of 8 ea 10-tooth, or a kit of 8 ea 15-tooth, etc.) The current “sampler” pack is less desirable than buying a bunch of what we need. I don’t mind buying an 8-pack of 15-tooth and 48-tooth sprockets plus two packs of chain. Again, I realize I run a large-ish program and buy more competition parts than most of your customers, but that’s why you IFI guys make the big bucks: for managing the SKUs.
Last comment, competition teams (and probably schools) don’t need the fancy retail packaging (blister packs) or data sheets in each kit. We can read data sheets online and just throw the pretty blister packs away right after the UPS box is opened. If there are any advantages to you in cheaper packaging, I’m all for it.
Thanks for listening.
Actually – you had me when you added the 12-tooth metal gears. Everything else is just gravy.
Hobbyist, but I second all of Mr. Tylers comments on repackaging gears, sprockets and reduced packaging. And just posting the data sheets online in pdf format is fine for me.
For example, I would pay $2.50 each for the 84-tooth gears if I could buy them in sets of four. But I won’t buy two combination gear sets for $25 when all I want is four large gears. And the packaging could be a plastic bag for all I care.
I would like to see the large 84 tooth gears sold in a package of 4 also. As already mentioned, you end up with a lot of smaller gears that you don’t really need just to get the large ones by buying the gear kits available now.
I do disagree however about the packaging and the binder inserts. Everyone might not have access to a computer or nice color printer and if you are a reseller of VEX parts in a store, the current packaging would look a lot nicer than just a plastic bag.
I know that it may add to the price, but personally, I like the nice blister packaging and boxes. Maybe there might be someway to cut back a little and still have nice packaging though.
Personally, the clutches aren’t too prone to stripping/rounding out unless you put them into some bad situations. IMO, they’re strong enough for their purpose, to keep your motors from dying. On the other hand, for 84’s, what my group did is to reinforce the 84 with bar locks/lock plates and screw them into the holes that the 84 provides, preventing stripped 84s and giving new life to stripped 84s
In most cases we have a pair of 84’s that are mounted on either side of an arm. We run three axles through an a 84, through the arm and through the 84 on the other side. All axles attach to the arm with the black plastic/metal lifting plates (*) , collars as needed to stop any sliding. We can lift huge amounts of weights without ripping the centers out of the 84’s that way. The three axles support the arm and there is very little arm wobble.
Foster
(*) When attaching the plastic/metal lifting plates, the metal locking side gets mounted facing in / touching the arm. That way stress can’t pop the metal insert out. This is a common problem my roboteers have. The insert pops out and all you have a is big round support.
I also agree with the idea of making a pack of 84 tooth gears to be sold separately. At the moment i have about a trillion 12 tooth gears with my purchases of the Gear Kit.