OK - hands-up who has had one of their plastic handles fracture and break on their Bitspower valves...
I have used a number of these without issue but today I had one fall apart without much pressure applied to the handle. I suspect the plastic was already compromised and weak as it failed with very little force applied.
I have heard of others experiencing the same issue, so I was not all that surprised when this one let go on me today.
Next question was what to do about it....????
I thought about using some JB weld to try and repair the handle itself but after about an hour of thinking about it I came up with the following repair method...
One of my other serious hobbies is RC heli flying so I have a good deal of RC spares.
I grabbed a servo horn that was a similar diameter to the original handle. These are splined and are designed to be screwed onto an RC servo. As I fly large RC helis, the servos I am accustomed to have very high torque figures and the utilise very strong servo horns.
I thought that these would almost be a drop in replacement for the original Bitspower plastic handle.
The Bitspower valve has an output shaft that is rectangular in shape with rounded ends. I simply notched out a matching rectangular slot in the servo horn's splined center section with a scalpel.
Now the servo horn can be simply placed over the shaft and secured by the original Bitspower screw.
Took about 10 mins all up for the repair....
These servo horns are way stronger than the original Bitspower handles so they will never break.
You can also buy full aluminium horns in different anodized colours such as silver/black etc They are also available in different shapes such as a two sided arm instead of the four sided one I have used which would match the original handle a lot closer.
You could easily modify these in the same way except that you would need to file a slot rather than cutting it with a scalpel as I have done above.
I'll probably fill in the holes in the arms with some epoxy, sand it back and give it a coat of Matt Black for that professional finish...!
For those that have one of these valves sitting in a draw at home hope you find this thread handy for placing that valve back into service.
I have used a number of these without issue but today I had one fall apart without much pressure applied to the handle. I suspect the plastic was already compromised and weak as it failed with very little force applied.
I have heard of others experiencing the same issue, so I was not all that surprised when this one let go on me today.
Next question was what to do about it....????
I thought about using some JB weld to try and repair the handle itself but after about an hour of thinking about it I came up with the following repair method...
One of my other serious hobbies is RC heli flying so I have a good deal of RC spares.
I grabbed a servo horn that was a similar diameter to the original handle. These are splined and are designed to be screwed onto an RC servo. As I fly large RC helis, the servos I am accustomed to have very high torque figures and the utilise very strong servo horns.
I thought that these would almost be a drop in replacement for the original Bitspower plastic handle.
The Bitspower valve has an output shaft that is rectangular in shape with rounded ends. I simply notched out a matching rectangular slot in the servo horn's splined center section with a scalpel.
Now the servo horn can be simply placed over the shaft and secured by the original Bitspower screw.
Took about 10 mins all up for the repair....
These servo horns are way stronger than the original Bitspower handles so they will never break.
You can also buy full aluminium horns in different anodized colours such as silver/black etc They are also available in different shapes such as a two sided arm instead of the four sided one I have used which would match the original handle a lot closer.
You could easily modify these in the same way except that you would need to file a slot rather than cutting it with a scalpel as I have done above.
I'll probably fill in the holes in the arms with some epoxy, sand it back and give it a coat of Matt Black for that professional finish...!
For those that have one of these valves sitting in a draw at home hope you find this thread handy for placing that valve back into service.
