Puck battle hardening / Potentiometer shit / Discussion of pros & cons (serious)

[Shadowfax]

Moving this whole discussion to a new thread.

If you step out of line, GOD AS MY WITNESS, I will flag the shit out of your posts.

@Tony_Stark

Haven’t got a video but we just mix up 5 minute epoxy and apply it with whatever (a chopstick in this case).

@Shadowfax

I strongly recommend you do not do this. It makes it impossible to repair the potentiometer.

I broke my first hoyt puck by dropping it and damaging the potentiometer. I sent it to hoyt and they repaired it for free.

I decided to battle harden my second hoyt puck with epoxy as shown in your picture. Worked perfect for about a year, and then the potentiometer started to fail. I never dropped it, it just started being frequently unresponsive / occasionally sending full throttle. Now, I have a totally unrepairable puck, and the entire PCB is trash instead of just sending it to hoyt for repair.

Maybe it’s different if you’re on the other side of the world (out of reach for easy repair), but if you are in the states, I would definitely not cover the potentiometer in epoxy.

@Evwan

Afaik they may not do this outside of warranty anymore.

Potentiometers still fail, even if they’re drop proof. I have two toast PCBs. One with a dropped pot (oops) and one that failed from frequent use.

@Tony_Stark

I disagree mate. My pot is starting to wear out and become less predictable, but I’ve had a lot of stacks with battle scars on the puck to prove it and would much rather replace the whole remote than risk getting stuck on full throttle at any time while riding.

The remote we dropped that wasn’t reinforced broke straight away and the pad ripped off the PCB making it difficult to repair without adding jumper wires and epoxying the pot down anyway.

@Evwan

That’s more than fair

@Shadowfax

That’s fair, I’m just bitter because I only got a few hundred miles of use out of this puck before it failed. Now an easy repair is impossible and I’m out $100 for a new puck, just because I thought Battle Hardening would make it live longer

Hall sensor puck let’s gooooo

@Evwan

Plz

Oil slick shell too?

@PedroMcJimenez

Anecdotal warning: Ive seen plenty of failed puck pots locally. None of them were epoxied.
The one that was epoxied(mine) has been smashed and crashed heeps, to the point of fishing everything out of the adjacent waist tall grass after stack. It’s missing partial resistors and hasn’t skipped a beat otherr than no charge indicator lights(blank but goes green when full).

The local failures have been a healthy mix of pot leg failures and internal pot failures so while epoxy helps heaps, the pot can still go bad.

F

@magharees

Mediation advisor: hot glue?

@Shadowfax

I unironically like this idea

black hot glue would provide some support to the pot legs, while being removable if required. I’m doing this to my puck

@Evwan

Water in the glue is gonna screw up the signal

this is satire

@magharees

@TimR

I think that the epoxy would soften enough using hot air from a SMD rework blower to remove from the PCB. 350 degrees in Celcius would probably be fine. I’ve also had a pot get a bit smashtered in a puk, but it’s been fine since my last repair and it’s taken a hiding.

@Tony_Stark

Glueing pucks is a conspiracy that was covered up by the government

@Evwan

@Tony_Stark

by the government Trampa

FIFY

if we’re going to jail, lets do it in style folks.

@Shadowfax

We shall never speak of this day again, and the people will wonder what happened

@SlickdogEsk8

Government mandated glueing safe and effective for your SAFEY … to keep you Safe

@magharees

(post deleted by author)

@Soflo

What is going on in this thread?

[SquishyCat]

I’ve had no issues with my puck so far, but I did epoxy my pot as soon as I got it. I’m now on my third puck case because I’m good at eating the pavement lol, I have not been gentle.

[magharees]

While hot glue is a temporary solution to a permanent problem I think you should know where my loyalties lie

[Venom121212]

[tomiboi]

I’ve been a fan of the high-heat hot-glue repair for this one.

[walnuts]

Someone needs to make a drop in hall sensor for it like @3DServisas did for the VX4

[Tony_Stark]

I was thinking the same thing. Wouldn’t be overly simple but probably not impossible either.

[jaykup]

@Shadowfax

I decided to battle harden my second hoyt puck with epoxy as shown in your picture. Worked perfect for about a year, and then the potentiometer started to fail. I never dropped it, it just started being frequently unresponsive / occasionally sending full throttle. Now, I have a totally unrepairable puck, and the entire PCB is trash instead of just sending it to hoyt for repair.

Epoxy turns rubbery with heat. You can probably use a hot air station to soften the epoxy and remove it. Yes the pcb is also made of epoxy but probably higher temp and the copper should wick away the heat enough that the added epoxy should soften first. Worth a try if you have already written it off.

The z-mote guy talked about having potentiometer issues with his prototypes and ended up using one that was rated for like a million cycles. You could check the part number of the Hoyt one and see what it is rated for and try to find a similar one with a longer estimated life

Throttle gave me a bit of a trouble as well. I didn’t want to use hall sensor because they are hard to get it just right and the output values are sometimes jumpy which is not ideal. I turned my attention to potentiometers but again most of the products are rated for 10-20K turn lifecycles. I found 2-3 products which are just right and rated for 1KK(1million) turn lifecycle and they are incredibly steady.

FWIW the hall sensor throttle on vesc wand is terrible and imo unusable.

[Shadowfax]

Unfortunately, when I said epoxy, I meant JB weld. I don’t see any hope of getting the potentiometer off without mass destruction.

[Evwan]

Isn’t that JB weld conductive?

[jaykup]

Are you not Dremel Evan??

Not sure which JB Weld you used, but seems like max temp is 150C so it probably hits the glass transition temperature just above that. Still colder than solder so I think it has a chance of working. I mean what will realistically get damaged? The pot? It’s already coming off…

[Shadowfax]

No, standard JB weld is an insulator.

@jaykup

Not sure which JB Weld you used, but seems like max temp is 150C

JB weld is remarkably heat tolerant. People use it on engine repairs.

I used the standard JB weld (not extra heat or whatever)

This is what I could find:

• Maximum Application Temperature - 120 °F
• Maximum Performance Temperature - 550 °F

I already replaced the puck, but I’ll see what I can do with an old soldering iron tip and a heat gun.

[Evwan]

Ah Im mistaken. I thought the dark grey jbweld was the high tensile one that had steel in it. I guess the colors are meaningless

[jaykup]

Looks like the “kwik” cure stuff is 300F (150C), but the original long cure formula is 550F (287C).

[iNoLikeFlexyDecks]

@jaykup

FWIW the hall sensor throttle on vesc wand is terrible and imo unusable.

Me and my friends here all own the hall sensor Wand and we have never had issues/false signals.

Say all you want but I’m happy I got this instead of the puck…

[DougM]

@walnuts

Someone needs to make a drop in hall sensor for it like @3DServisas did for the VX4

Well that’s a fascinating question. Depending on what’s available on these pads

you could build a drop-in hall replacement.

But I think the issue is that Hoyt would have to be willing to adapt the firmware to the output curve of the HALL. I’m not sure they’d be willing to do that.

[jaykup]

@iNoLikeFlexyDecks

Me and my friends here all own the hall sensor Wand and we have never had issues/false signals.

Say all you want but I’m happy I got this instead of the puck…

Doesn’t engage until 1/4 throttle and backs off at full throttle. Very short throw. Overall poor tuning of the hall sensor throttle.

Did you ever find a fix for this?

@iNoLikeFlexyDecks

When pressing the throttle all the way. You can push the magnets beyond the hall sensors and it actually releases the throttle a little bit.

So if you use some force to press down the throttle when going all in. You will actually not be going full throttle. I know it seems like a stupid thing to say but the magnet version of the wand has already a much smaller resolution so this matters imo.

@jaykup

Same here

[iNoLikeFlexyDecks]

You can replace the silicone pads with bigger ones.

You won’t notice this little indent on your riding though.

[iNoLikeFlexyDecks]

@jaykup

Very short throw

This is fact

[magharees]

Snip & dremel off what you can 1st?