Hey guys,
A couple months ago I saw a post in which the old linear slides were being discontinued, and the whole community was in somewhat of an uproar.
Recently, I’ve been able to get my hands on a set of both, and after some testing, I don’t really see the big deal. I think the new ones are better, because they don’t cause the inner sliders to stick out (for example while lifting a scissor lift).
Could someone please explain why the old linear slides are deemed “more superior”?
Thanks
The old ones are not superior, they were just better suited for some applications. As everyone becomes used to the new ones they can make equally nice designs with them as well.
The old slides are generally considered more superior because they don’t have anywhere as much wiggle room in them (any movement other than the one direction they’re supposed to be going in). If there is slack, it’s easy enough to bend them back into shape. With the new slides, you can’t really fix all the wiggle, as it’s inherent to the truck system. You can get rid of some of it, but weren’t able to get nearly the same amount.
I do plan to use the new slides this year, but our bot’s lift last year could not have possibly used the new slides with the same performance.
Im just curious, what applications make the old sliders better?
Here is a picture of last years programming skills robot. A single linear slide, powered by two motors, raised the conveyer belt assembly from horizontal to the position shown. Sacks were then moved up and dropped of the end into the trough. Not sure we could have done that with the new linear slides.
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We (4886 and alum) also love the older sliders. So far I think we’ve had a robot each year that has used them as one of their main parts of the robot. The most recent one was this bad boy.
Here’s a close up picture. http://i.imgur.com/ouCiJfT.jpg
Our school also likes the older slides because they have more uses that fit our needs. As for the new ones they work fine for what they can be used for as far as we have seen.
Is this a wall bot?
Yessirrrrrr it is. Did it ever actually pass inspection and compete as a wallbot? Nope. But it sure did look cool, and it caused a ton of hype at the competition. If we had doubled the amount of linear slides on the robot it would have been working perfectly fine though.
I am curious as to of why it didnt pass inspection, can you tell me why?
Oh I was on my phone when I saw the post and I didn’t see the video for some reason. But now that I see the video, wow that is cool :D.
I’m not from his team but I know the story. The insane amount of rubber bands on that robot pulled on the sliders with so much force that it could not compact completely into the 18" sizing cube. They got really close to fitting it in, but it never passed inspection.
Here is a video of that wallbot expanding, it was posted to the forum a while ago.
The VEX Raptors nailed it.
Along with it barely not fitting even after last minute dremeling, it could not expand as fast as we needed it to (1.4 seconds) without an unsafe number of rubber bands. This was why the project was abandoned.
I do however have a video of the legal version of this robot sitting on the field. Sadly I forgot that video at home so I can’t upload it until December.
Why did you need to make it expand in under 1.4 seconds?
I do believe that was the time they decided would be fast enough so that no robot would “beat it” to its location.
Robot has to cross 2/3 of field and then expand before opponents can cross 1/3
