Although aeon’s case is an extreme one, this does happen no matter how high build quality you have if you run your robot for extended periods of time. Once the outer edge of the holes is breached, friction increases by a large margin, and you have to replace the piece.
The abs plastic vex uses is less hard than the steel, it will cut through, and grind no matter the build quality
I agree this isn’t true. In v5 what happens when you have an axel in a metal hole with no bearing? Does sticking some lube on it with this? What about when bearing are used (also v5)? Without lube will the axles just grind the bearings?
Of course not, I’d be willing to say over half of the v5 teams don’t even use a lubricant and don’t have this issue I see no reason why vex IQ teams should need a lubricant to be a competitive team, especially since IQ is meant to be an entry point to robotics. If a member of an iq team really want to use lube that badly, they can just do v5 if they are old enough and their school supports Ms v5.
I appreciate the concern for fairness in competitions but I really don’t believe that a lubricant will be the difference between a winning team and a losing one, plus there is not much we can do here.
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Correct it happens with geared connections. likei mentioned. Side loading your gears does the same thing. if i had to guess this pice was on an intake with chan that was to tight or a catapult that had band power side loading the gears. but Lube aint gonna magically fix this. its funadmentally a weak plastic + metal shaft isssue.
@SHELPERD yes when you damage the hole its only a matter of time before the square shaft eats away at it espeicially under load but unlike what @aeon is implying Lubricant is not a magic band aid for this. But also ABS is a bearing adjacent matireial. when not abused and put under unessesary loads or not int contact with potentially roughf un finised axles then its gonna give out. I also noticed that when Vex switched to the more eco freindly plastic that the new eco freindly plastic especially the colored pices are more prone to this.
@Wij I am quite aware. I competed in IQ for 4 years. Had this same exact issue and it showed up on the drive sprokets, especially when using chain drives which were imporperly over tentiosned. as well as on catapults which were improperly assembled. But it never showed up when i payed attention and assmbled my mechs properly. in Squared away i had no issues with my intake shafts which were spinning constantly, in Rise above, over covid, i had no issues with drive shafts, ift shafts or anything. all the holes stayed perfectly round.
Sorry for hte wall of text. but in conclusin:
pay attention to your building habits. Dont over tighten chain, if you have to yank on it to mesh the links dont. your doing it wrong. If your robot isnt built square and doenst seem to fit the hole pattern and yo have to push things to make them line up, your doing it wrong. this shaft mis alighnment and forcing will cause this issue. make sure you have shafts that are smooth with no sharp unfiled edges. and finally Lube is not a magic band-aid. lube isnt going t oreduce the side loading forces magically. only build quality and attention to detail can do that.
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This happens very often on drivetrains, as in IQ the force of the robot downward most definitely presses the shaft into the side of the hole. Non drivetrain mechanisms don’t really have this issue in my experience. but this is most definitely an issue that all IQ teams will face if they have a drivetrain.
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I think the point of the topic has drifted a little bit. Build quality really helps in the first place.
But… teams are going to cheat and use lubricant and most likely never get caught (I assume everyone is going to be a lot smarter than lasts years Lube-gate). Do you level the playing field and make how they are cheating legal is the topic at hand. Are the gains minimal at the IQ level, yes, but when everyone is trying to squeeze every once out of a plastic robot, a 5-10% better intake or drivetrain with lubricant could be a matter of a couple points here and there that effects where you rank.
I think it’s stupid to use lubricant at this level but I also think finding a way to take away people who are cheating and their advantage to level the playing field isn’t a bad idea either. It would be really great if VEX was testing some secret detection method without our knowing and would be able to have a cloth they wipe on a robot that would change color if it interacted with dried lubricant on parts during inspections.
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This isn’t necassaryily true. Parts wear out with gravity from my testing. The my axles always wear the beam out downward.
This argument just isn’t true, unlike V5 iq holes drill when axles rotate, and the weak motors make lube more valuable.
Lubricants aren’t allowed, and they most likely never will legalize it. There is no trying to get Vex to unban it. It’s basically cheating if you can use it. Vex doesn’t allow it for a reason, plus they don’t want it to damage the field. This is also how VRC works.
This is not how VRC Works, its legal in vrc.
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If a team has the money to spend on Worlds, they have the money to replace the four beams that is their drive base. 
So like you, I think that this wear issue is a red herring / distraction.
I’ve given this some thought (way more than it deserves) and I’ve come up with RECF should adopt NASCAR / F1 rules. NASCAR the top five cars are brought through this final inspection and checked for measurements one more time. F1 looks at all the cars. A few days ago Nico Hulkenberg was disqualified from rule infractions about the car.
So my plan would be for VEXIQ to impound the top 10 robots (the five top teamwork challenge place holders) right after their matches complete, inspect them and if a team has lube, they take the DQ and the next team moves up a place.
It takes a few minutes to take the motors off, swab the holes where axles pass through and test. They can do this during the game reveal so there is time.
So if this is as wide spread as other posts suggest, it’s possible that 4th place team could be the World Champion. But I’ll guess that the close inspection will be enough to deter teams from taking the risk.
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What’s to stop teams from just using lube for every qualifier and then wiping it off before finals?
How long does it take to check for lube?
I’m wondering if this could be done on a larger scale of, every team will be checked for lube after one of their qualifier matches.
Could be the first, could be the last, why risk it?
This again just is objectively not a good point, as again lube is virtually undetectable. It could be right in front of everybody and even with proper equipment if you purchase the right kind will go undetected. They checked lube at worlds last year and every team in dome I’v asked used lubricators. Also, again just because worlds cost a lot doesn’t mean that the extra money should be ok. This argument is pretty irrelevent. If you can afford a house I don’t think you should ever complain about increased food cost would be a comparable analogy, and the longevity of parts is something I think we can all agree would be good.
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First of all, I think detecting lube would be pretty straight forward for a WORLD championship and if wanted, they could easily pull something like this off. For your other statements I think it’s really sad that you feel most teams are this desperate to use a lubricant to go to these levels of cheating. If a team is so willing to cheat that they will wipe it off before finals or pay extra money to hide it, then I don’t think lubricants are the only problem. For the longevity of parts, I agree VIQRC has some issues with wear on parts, but this isn’t something that can be fixed with lube. Yes it will slow the wearing process, but it won’t fix the problem.
Another issue I’d like to bring up is something like you said about spending money. Most middle school coaches probably aren’t going to be willing to buy lube just for minimal optimizations, so allowing lube will literally make it harder for more teams by allowing the already advanced teams to have a better advantage.
Personally, I think that vex IQ, and v5 for that matter, should be meant to improve ones build quality and engineering mindset. The point of VEX is not for teams to basically pay their way to champions, based on your description about lube efficiency. Instead of complaining about other teams cheating or life being unfair, they should focus on improving what they can control, such as their build quality. While some part damage and wear might be inevitable, with good build practices, one can easily avoid damage to the extent shown.
Back on the topic of lube, again there is really nothing we can do here as we have no input on the matter, and if we’re honest, VEX is not ever going to legalize lube for vex IQ. I understand that this is frustrating for higher level teams, but try to remember that there are some elementary students participating in IQ, and just try to improve building techniques to solve your problems and chances of winning, instead of relying on outside sources and a pay wall.
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So you agree about the part longevity, which lube helps with. And its not meant for everybody; even if most aren’t it closes the skill gap for those who need it.
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No, it closes the gap for those who pay for it. Now can we please stop with these arguments and provide new reasons for or against lube instead of just repeating the same things.
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You misunderstood what I was saying. If you have a part that you are worried about becoming malformed because of wear, you have the ability to replace it. A 2x20 beam is a dollar, so replacing all 4 of them on your drive base to replace the totally destroyed parts because of lack of lube will cost you $4. If you are going to Worlds you have the $4. @aeon’s plates are about the same cost, they could have replaced them for every event they went to for under $20. Or could have gotten a free build consult from @TimmyOsborne
I have a saying that I custom fit: “It’s good to have goals, yours is to get the rules to change to allow lube, mine is to weigh 185. Neither is going to happen, but we can both dream”. Good luck on your quest Don Quixote
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it can happen with perfect bq, especially with the need for uber-fast intakes this year, just gravity combined with this speed grinds down the plastic pieces, your counterpoint to this happens with perfect bq, being “you must’ve had bad bq” doesn’t work. Repeating your argument doesn’t change the facts. Teams are cheating undetected, and the RECF is continually doing NOTHING about it.
I have to say that I’m more disappointed with team coaches and mentors, whatever happened to honesty, values and following the game rules.
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