workhard:
Took my drive apart for some cleaning and found 5 sprocket teeth missing.
This has been an issue for me for a long time now, and this drive is now out from under warranty. Unlike the older V2 drives, with the 180 if you shear off teeth like this you cannot replace the sprocket for 20$, you have to REPLACE THE ENTIRE SPLINE which is 305$.
After doing this a bunch of times I have a good idea of what's causing it. The teeth always shear off in the same locations, on the ends. This is when the pedals are near the end of their strokes and the fewest teeth are in contact with the chain and have to bear all the force. I tend to use almost full range of the drive and put a lot of force all throughout the stroke fighing heavy current and traveling long distances. I'll be retiring this drive for guest use and moving on to a warrantied drive and my main, and will be using more shorter strokes centered mid-range of the drive. I can't see how Hobies engineers don't know about this.
This drive stats: 2.5 years Over 600 miles Five different splines (4 from sheared teeth, 1 I destroyed the internals) Broke off a pedel at the shaft Broke the idler cable twice
ThreemoneyJ:
Yeah the new drive is not as durable. My old V2 never had an issue. My new MD180 has sheared off teeth at the very end like you described and showed. The cost of the replacement is extremely high! I would love to find a usable solution.
workhard:
--- Quote from: ThreemoneyJ on June 01, 2020, 07:53:38 PM ---Yeah the new drive is not as durable. My old V2 never had an issue. My new MD180 has sheared off teeth at the very end like you described and showed. The cost of the replacement is extremely high! I would love to find a usable solution.
--- End quote ---
I'm willing to bet a lot of other people have done it as well, they just don't look at their drives or maintain them regularly.
Clayman:
Seeing this makes me want to hang onto my V2 drives for as long as possible. I've sheared a few sprocket teeth on one of them, broken a couple masts, idler cable a few times, but that's over a five year span of use (two years of which were primarily in lakes).
Saltydog0:
How many teeth are there supposed to be on each sprocket on the 2017 MD180 drive? I know I've sheared at least one tooth on one side.