At our recent state championship, I heard from another team that high-strength gears would be banned. I looked at the vex website and they no longer sell the green v1 gears. I remember seeing somewhere that parts no longer sold on the vex website are no longer legal. Does this mean that all green v1 gears will no longer be legal in the 2022-2023 season?
No. Why would the GDC ban green gears, they have the same function as the red ones, the only difference being the color. This would upset many teams if they had to buy new gears because they weren’t the right color.
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Definitive ruling from the GDC that the green high strength gears are legal:
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What about the green not so high strength gears? We have a few thousand of those.
and this creates a new problem, frame rails, etc that now have to have holes in them. This creates a problem with season to season reuse. During a season it makes it harder to move an axle forward 1/2" since a new hole needs to be drilled and because it’s only 1/2" the holes will be too close together and now a new chunk of metal is needed.
None of that makes me happy as someone that tries to keep costs down.
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To say nothing of the inspectors stuck trying to enforce these rules, and who will inevitably have to tell teams they can’t compete because a piece of metal they bought from VEX stopped being legal because it was removed from a website…
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Some more discontinued food for thought… What about the new anti-static omni wheels and the discontinued old omni wheels?
These new wheels have a new spoke design with many attachment points. There is quite a bit of added functionality.
And what are chances they adjusted the diameters so that they match up better with the non-omni wheels?
You are kidding me… we can’t use the green 4” omni anymore?!
Coming soon to a rules book soon. Teams won’t be able to buy the green omni, that puts them at a disadvantage, so other teams won’t be able to use the stock pile of them from prior seasons.
And still not buying how purchasing anti-static fields, anti-static wheels and anti-static sprays is better than VEX putting $2 worth of chips into the brain to stop the WSOD. But I may come around. 
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If the only difference were the color, then green would be OK (from what I understand). But this new omni has a vastly different spoke patter that has new attachment points. The way I interpret the rule on discontinued parts, the old Omni’s (green or gray) would be illegal… definitely after March 31st and next year.
And checking the cad files for the 4" traction wheels shows that they have a circumference of just over 325 mm. The new omni-wheels are listed at 320 mm.
I think VEX will need to update and be very clear about what parts are legal moving forward.
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There doesn’t seem to me to me any sensible reason to ban discontinued parts at all, as long as they’re still perfectly usable and compatible with the system. There is virtually no competitive advantage gained from using older parts, and large amounts of waste and complication generated by banning them from use, especially when the products in question are still being widely used. There shouldn’t need to be exceptions made to allow these parts to continue being used, because there shouldn’t be a rule mass prohibiting discontinued parts in the first place.
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So, I’m going to play devil’s advocate. I don’t agree with what I’m about to say, but just as a possible reason.
Those old thin omni wheels are (as I understand it) really good for odometry, but you can no longer get them. And there’s no replacement that’s as good as they are for that particular task. So older teams that have the old omni wheels have the competitive advantage of access to a part that is better for that particular task, that newer teams have absolutely no way to get. Which goes against the idea that in VEX everybody is working with the same parts to keep the competition field level.
The same would also be true for things like the clutch springs, the old linear slides, etc.
(all of this is ignoring unobtainium pneumatics which are a definite competitive advantage which no teams can get their hands on, GDC please nerf, but like, that’s a separate rant)
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engaging your devils advocacy here, these mentioned parts in my opinion do not fall under the realm of widely used parts. Nor do I think they provide any significant competitive advantage. The thin omni wheels are nice for low profile tracking wheels, but teams have found perfectly good alternatives by cutting 2.75" omnis or finding room for the whole wheels. any minute imbalance of advantages between old and new teams from these parts is far less harmful than blanket banning all discontinued parts would be to the program.
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Vex bans green gears: solution: paint gears red
Jk, in all seriousness though, they sold green gears this season so they aren’t going to ban them but if hypothetically, you did paint it in the same shade of red as the red gears it would take a skilled inspector to tell them apart (until the paint inevitably wears off lol)
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I could definantly see a ban on this in the future, but have the traction wheels also been updated yet?
Adding on to this, the old 2.75-inch omni wheels actually aren’t that good for tracking wheels. The single row of omnis makes for inconsistent tracking. Using the new 2.75s, uncut, is ideal for trackers as having two rows of rollers makes the wheel an actual circle. The only advantage of the old wheels is their lower profile. In terms of tracking ability, they simply are not as good.
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From what i can see on the website the traction wheels still use the old wheel leg (also our team just bought 2.75" omni wheels from vex and received green, same wheel leg style) and unless they update those it would be hard to use the old wheel legs as an excuse to ban them, as for the number of rollers that is still probable but if they suddenly ban old omni wheels and thousands of teams have to scramble to buy new ones then I doubt they would be able to keep up on demand which means some teams wouldn’t be able to compete for no reason at all. So if they are gonna ban them than I sure hope they would announce that far in advance to give teams time to get new wheels.
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As long as they are listed on the website, they are legal. Don’t forget that they are available in several kits and could be still for months to come.
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Thanks for the refresher. I had forgotten the stipulation that a discontinued part is still legal as long as it is listed on the VEX product pages. Once a product is officially removed from the product pages, then it is illegal.
The relevant Q&A question is here. with the important text being…
In general, the official VEX website can be used as the definitive resource regarding current part availability / legality. Discontinued products that are no longer found on the VEX website are no longer considered “part of the VEX V5 system” (in the context of R6) and are therefore not legal for use.
So no need to panic everybody as these item should be be legal as they are discontinued but still listed:
- 3.25" 3.25" Omni-Directional Wheel - 276-3526
- 4" Omni-Directional Wheel - 276-2185
- 5" traction wheels - 276-1498 (also in wheel kit)
- 6" Wheel Leg - 276-2218
- Chassis Rails (16 hole rails are in the kits)
I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I am aware of currently.
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Is there any indication from Vex as to when they plan to remove these discontinued products from the website? As a first year team, we would like to be able to get a few years out of parts we bought before the tipping point season.
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