The Linear Motion Pack provides a method for VEX IQ builders to create linear mechanisms. Utilize these with your own mechanisms to build direct driven linear actuators.
Finally, the Thin Plastic Sheet Add-On Pack contains plastic sheets in various sizes. These are thin and lightweight with a number of uses from a smooth surface on top of a plate, to a flexible shroud over part of your robot. They can even work with dry erase markers as a small writing surface.
Oh yeah, and you definitely aren’t alone.
Let me prove it to y’all.
First off, let’s talk about these new ̶b̶e̶v̶e̶l̶ … ̶s̶p̶u̶r̶…err… hybrid gears. They aren’t quite spur gears, and they aren’t quite bevel gears. These are some sort of frankenstein between the two. Frankenstein wasn’t perfect, so let’s address the elephant in the room first. They are 3/4" of a pitch wide. So they won’t like being stuck between two beams that are one beam thickness apart. Gotta give these gears a little extra room to breathe. There are hybrid gears in the new IQ gen2 kits, so make sure you pay close attention to the clearance around hybrid gears if you are lucky enough to have one of those kits already.
But! With that one downside, they have some amazing They mesh perfectly with all the existing VEX IQ spur gears. All the blue gears in this are the new hybrid gears, while the yellow one in the middle is a normal 36t spur gear.
Now, when I said these are like bevel gears, I wasn’t telling the whole truth. These gears aren’t like normal bevel gears. Normally if you need two sized bevel gears, they are made in pairs to ensure that they mesh together perfectly. These gears aren’t like that. Check out the comparison to the original bevel gears in purple. You are no longer limited to a 1:1 90° mesh. These gears don’t care! In my example assembly, I have a 24t hybrid gear driving both a 12t and a 36t hybrid gear. (I’ll give bonus points to anyone that can tell, or show, me another way we can take advantage of this feature.)
Little bit of a disclaimer here, if you also have a VEX GO kit, be careful. It also has it’s own hybrid gears, but they do not have the same diametral pitch and therefor are not compatible with each other.
Next up let’s talk a little about my favorite IQ part in existence. 228-2500-1925.
I know every single one of you that has made a robot has ran into the issue where you want to attach a wheel. And you really really want to cantilever it. We all do it, it’s okay. But there’s one big issue. The wheels want to fall off. So what do you do? Put a shaft collar on it, obviously. Okay great. But we all know that one shaft collar isn’t going to last an entire competition. It never does. If only there was some way to retain that shaft collar while simultaneously making the wheel more rigidly attached to the shaft!! Look no further.
“But, Sidoti!” you might be internally shouting right now, “How do you know that it actually works?!?!?”
Just like every good engineer, and GLaDOS, knows, we have to test. I got the chance to test this out with a project I worked on while I was still an intern, the VEX Robotics Offroad Truck. And I must say, I have driven all of mine much more than I should have and I haven’t had a single failure of the -1925. And in this kit it’s a sweet cherry red. Notice how the tire comes off before the wheel?
“But, Sidoti!” you might be asking again, “You are just one person. How can your experience cover everyone else’s experience too?” Great point. What better way to test this than to put it in a bunch of other retail kits and let the masses test for you? Well, that’s exactly what we did. Only the biggest of VEX IQ buffs will recognize the following models:
Even more bonus points if you can name all three models.
Can you say some more about these two items? Your video shows the hybrid and the V1 gears working well together. I had sort of assumed that the product lines ( Go, VIQ and the Hexbug Robotics) were all pretty much plastic compatable (brains and motors are not). Can you talk some about the incompatibility that exist?
There is no compatibility issues that exist between the product lines, other than the control system and accompanying components, just like you said.
The reason that the gears will not mesh can be obviously seen by the size of the teeth. There are two main differences when the size of the teeth change this dramatically. The diametral pitch and the pressure angle. The diametral pitch of a gear is essentially the number of teeth in that gear for each inch of pitch diameter. The pressure angle of a gear is essentially the angle at which the pressure from one gear’s tooth is transfered onto the tooth of other gear.
I don’t need to get into too much detail, but these two images might do a better job of explaining these concepts than my words alone can.
Anyways, that’s why the GO gears are not compatible with the IQ gears. In nearly the same way that the bevel gears are not compatible with the spur gears. Or the purple bevel gears in my video above are not compatible with the High Strength bevel gears found in some retail kits like Tombstone, Minotaur, and the Offroad Truck.
Hope this helped learn ya something on this Wednesday.
Y’all didn’t think I was done, did you?
With all of these new products available did you really think I’d stop after just showing off two???
The Liner Motion Pack introduces new takes on some old pieces.
Most notably the rack gears with the built in pins, and the new guides with the built in pin geometry.
The addition of the pin geometry allows for a few different features on each part. I made this prototype assembly to show off some of these features! (This mechanism might look familiar to some of you)
Let’s start with the 1x6 Continuous Linear Motion Rack Gear (228-2500-1473). The pins being built in does two things!
Allows multiple to be placed next to each other to create any length (divisible by 6 pitch) continuous rack gear.
Let’s the user take full advantage of the full length of the rack without the need of holes at either end to accept pins or standoffs.
Next, the 1 Pitch Linear Motion Bracket w/ Snap (228-2500-1470). The single pin geometry allows the mating Rack Gear or Linear Motion Beam to only be constrained in two directions. Meaning it can rotate. Using two in like like I have on the under side of the rack gear will eliminate this degree of freedom.
Here’s that mechanism in action!
These parts make mechanisms like cams, cranks, indexers, & walkers much easier now! I’m excited to see what you all come up with.
I love those supports too. It would be nice to be able to buy them in packs. It would also be great to be able to have / use them for VRC. Being able to stabilize / add support for a gear or a wheel would be nice for some of the beginning teams.
Are you going to share which other kits have them? I have the front end / back hoe and I know they are on them. The dump truck also has them. They come in Build Blitz. Did I miss one?
What about ropes? Im looking forward to the uses of those pieces. But you mentioned dragging. WIll there be a game where things will require ropes? Like a drag along trailer and whatnot? Because current size limitaitons severeley impact the uses of that.
The cams in the IQ v2 kit are referred to as drop cams or snail cams. They allow for gradual linear motion followed by a drop. Here is a website with some good info: The Snail / Drop Cam
You could use them to make a shooting mechanism if you add some rubber bands for tension.
I’m sorry, I don’t think I did mention dragging. But like @kmmohn said, expansion rules change all the time. Did you have specific questions about the ropes? I didn’t really focus on them because we are just introducing more sizes, and not really new parts.
There are no cams in this thread. We do have cams in the IQ V2 kits, but not here. I think the link @nnolte dropped is actually really excellent. If you still have questions after checking out that webpage, feel free to ask!
New parts are added all of the time. It’s incredibly difficult to regenerate the legal parts appendix. Especially as frequently as every single time a single part is released. In general, if the part in question has come out of an IQ or VEX retail kit, does not have electronics, and is very clearly an IQ part with snaps or holes, it will be legal. Use your best judgement. Use common sense.
Just added to the VEX Website, Anti-Static Omni-Directional Wheels! These will replace the existing 4" and 3.25" Omni-Directional Wheels, which some of you noticed were recently marked as Discontinued.
First introduced in the EXP kits, the rollers of these wheels contain anti-static material to help mitigate the amount of static generated. The hole pattern also provides more mounting options than the originals.
Because I know the question will be asked, we are transitioning ALL of our other Traction and Omni-Directional wheels to Anti-Static versions. However, we are not sure at this time when each wheel will be transitioned, as we first need to exhaust our current inventory of each original wheel. (Similar to how we transitioned gear colors from green to red.)
Note that we do not currently have these Anti-Static wheels in stock, as they are currently in-transit from overseas. We are only accepting pre-orders at this time. Barring any setbacks, we expect to start shipping these 3.25" and 4" wheels in late March.
How does the strength compare to the current wheels? I’m worried that these wheels’ spokes look thinner and easier to snap. Will these new wheels also have a metal core like the new gears have?
