What are people doing with their old Legacy motors? Any reason to keep them if we’ve transferred to V5?
What to do with Legacy Motors, etc
You could sell them.
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Sell on Ebay? Here? Are there programs not going to V5?
Well, you can’t directly sell them here because there is no ecommerce setup, but plenty of people either post links to eBay or list their inventory and prices here, arranging purchases through private messages and PayPal.
Especially with V5 orders indefinitely suspended, there are many programs that will not be switching to V5 for at least the rest of this season.
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If nobody in your area wants them, you could always ship them to Vex to reuse the parts. Maybe if you call first, they might give you a discount code or something.
What sort of ‘reusing’ do you think VEX is going to do?
They’re definitely not in the business of selling used or refurbished parts. And they’re already just recycling the thousands of trade-in Cortexes, Joysticks, and VEXnet keys.
Thinking something along those lines. Stealing capacitors or whatever from them. I don’t know. Probably a better idea to sell to teams, but if all else fails, I might contact Vex.
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There’s no business model there. Simple economics.
‘Stealing capacitors or whatever from them’ would be really expensive in a mass-production context, let alone the shipping costs VEX would have to absorb to get retired products from teams. Giving discount codes would just be the final nail on the coffin.
Also, ‘if all else fails’ (which is highly doubtful, since buying new from VEX is expensive and slow), legacy equipment can be donated to any number of STEM education initiatives.
I genuinely don’t see any value in contacting VEX. You would definitely be wasting their time, that could be better spent dealing with V5. You’d almost certainly be wasting your own time, too (again, basic economics: if VEX has no incentive to accept your offer, they won’t accept your offer). Would you contact Amazon, or almost any other retailer, and ask if they want your product back after you were done with it? No, you wouldn’t.
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they may be a fun thing to use to build random things and tinker with.
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If is anyone is considering throwing away working Cortexes, Joysticks, 393 Motors, Motor Controller 29s, etc. please don’t. I’ve been helping a charity that provides STEM and robotics programs for under served youth in Uganda, and they could definitely use your functional yet out of date parts.
https://www.justcausecanada.org/donate-services-or-equipment/
Please contact me if you’re interested!
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Alright. You win. Just an idea.
This is a much better idea.
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Just bumping this post. Just Cause has a volunteer going over to Uganda this summer and we’re looking specifically for more Cortexes for them to bring to the students. So if you have any old Cortexes that are sitting around and never going to be used, and you’d like to give them a new home with some super eager kids who love VEX, please send me a note and I’ll find a way to take these off your hands.
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We may dip into the V5 this year, but plan to use cortex again. We are a small independent team and just don’t have the funds to go all in on V5, plus with the many problems we saw last season, any extra time to cook and get them closer to reliable, the better.
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We have given them to our engineering teacher.
Karthik, I have the old V5 transmitter & receiver brains and remotes that had been given to me to do demonstrations promoting robotics & VEX. Could you use them for your charity? joan
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We could definitely use them. Although shipping from Hawaii may be cost prohibitive.
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Karthik, could you also use the older Botball processors (CBCs) from KISS Institute? I have several along with the motors?
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Karthik,
I have lots of Cortex units, controllers, batteries, motors, etc…
I would be happy to ship over to someone that could use them - but I may be required to get the shipping costs reimbursed or “traded” for credit at VEX store. Could something like that be worked out?
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Yes, I’m happy to reimburse shipping costs, especially within the Canada or the lower 48 states! We just secured 10 Cortexes from a very generous donor, so now we’re looking for VEXnet keys, VEXnet Controllers, batteries, and chargers. (We have a decent supply of motors, but more wouldn’t hurt as well) We can work out the details via email. You can reach me at kkanagas AT gmail DOT com
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We just received a large donation from Team 3796 via @MayorMonty. I’m blown away by their generosity! These parts will be heading to Uganda next week 
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