VEX is excited to announce that almost all of the new products announced at the 2014 VEX Robotics World Championship are now In Stock and ready to purchase in the US!
Visit the New Products category for more details. Products now available include:
Some fine print: The products listed above will be available to ship from Canada and Europe in the next 2-4 weeks. The Battery Extension Cable will be available by the end of the summer.
As always, feel free to contact [email protected] or 903-453-0802 to order or to answer any questions you may have. Good luck teams, and we look forward to seeing the new applications you find for these products!
High strength shafts are an awesome addition. No one would believe how many times I’ve been asked by spectators and judges “Why did you use so small of a shaft? Couldn’t you have used the next size up?” (They were consistantly shocked to hear that no larger size existed.) The battery extension cable is also something to which I’ve been looking forward.
I do have a question: are the clamping shaft collars going to replace the current collars, or will we still be able to use the current collars in VRC? (Because of the language on the product page, “without scratching or damaging the shaft,” it sounds like this could be attempting to replace the current design by highlighting an advantage of the new design.)
We will still be able to use them regardless of if they continue to be sold or not because of R5d:
The question is whether these will still be available to purchase, or if they are going to be sold until the current stock runs out, and then that’s it.
Are there any plans to update certain parts to be compatible with the HS Shafts? The HS Gears are already compatible (except the 12T- not much can be done there) because you can just not put the insert in the HS gears and run the HS shaft through the hole instead, but HS sprockets and all of the wheels except the 3.25" ones do not have this feature.
If the following could be made compatible with the HS shafts, that would make everything more standard and versatile:
I know this would probably cost a lot to change to as far as manufacturing goes with tooling but it would create a nice standard across all parts that have the square bore. It seems like VEX will be sticking with these two shaft sizes for quite a while so perhaps this would be a good investment.
Well as far as the 4 inch omni wheels go. The large inserts currently used could be removed to put in a high strength axle. The same way teams have removed them to put in the metal inserts to reduce slop.
I would suggest using a flat head screw driver and basically prying it loose. Try your best not to damage the plastic on the wheel but the switch is definitely worth it.
P.S. Brute force can be applied in some instances, such as this. Good luck!
That’s the whole reason teams did it. But it is illegal because it hyper hydrates the wheels. Upon googling the term I’m very confused what that means but that is the ruling. Would really appreciate if someone could explain it for me :).
The ruling had nothing to do with “hyper-hydrating”, rather we didn’t want teams exposing themselves to any potential safety risks that could come from placing VEX parts in boiling water.
The way I have been removing them over the years is with a hammer and an axle to chisel out the internal plastic. The square axle shape really helps in the corners and its pretty evident when a part of the insert is gone as the plastics are different strengths and colors.
When we said “One last announcement” earlier, we may have been mistaken - there’s one more “one last” announcement that we know many have been waiting for.
