I couldn’t find anything on this topic yet but I was wondering how big of a difference is it from the old Vex mats to the new ones. The new ones are expensive and I was wondering if it’s worth it. How big is the change from the old to new and what are the effects on autons/driver?
According to Vex, they do not have a difference in driving and auton performance, but I have yet to see that claim either true or false. However, the one big advantage that they do have comes from their static-resistance which will top more ports from breaking. They also are reversible so you can in theory use them for twice as long.
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From what I have heard, the new mats are a bit softer than the old ones, not enough to cause problems in auton, but your results may be different depending on how heavy your robot is and how close to the ground it is
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The new ones are not colored.
From my experience, here is what I’ve learnt.
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The new mats are anti-static, which will make your auton more consistent.
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If you have used the old mats a lot, they might not fit together as well, which is a problem we are facing right now. Every time we test our auton at comps, the robot travels too far in the initial stretch. Something to think about.
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Since they are a bit softer, that means that you might have varying degrees of friction that you will have to compensate for
Overall, if you can afford them, buy the new mats. You will not have to compensate for the issues with your current mats, then re-compensate for the changes you find when you test on the new ones.
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They seem to be pretty much the same. I miss the color sections. At the Delmarva Champs we had no static issues. But it’s Delmarva, we are surrounded by water so the relative humidity is always above 40%
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Is that “pretty much the same” compared between the prior tiles with staticide or w/o?
Just to put things in perspective, the full field set is cheaper than a single V5 brain…
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if you have static issue the new ones are totally worth it. they completely eliminated all static for us.
Since getting the anti static tiles I have white screened 8 times and lost 6 ports. They do not seem to be doing much for us. We got them 6 days ago
and that brings me to assertions about not all white screens and blown ports are due to ESD.
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What do you believe causes them? I’ve noticed I only white screen when my battery is below 50% but I can’t find a similar cause for ports blowing.
White screen has been demonstrated in high impact situations last season and then remedied when brain was padded (shock absorber)… The assumption was a sudden power drop… Ports blowing failures has ported due to metal shavings from cutting metal on the robot with brain on robot with not protections, and shorted smart cables…
so there are other causes.
Not saying ESD was never a factor in port failures.
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