Rock Solid hobie pedal arm upgrade group buy .... UPDATED WITH ORDER INFO!!!

I'm still in for one set!  Thanks

Im still in

I think what Bill is doing is fantastic.  I also think that one of the Hobie sponsored people should make Hobie aware of this.  I for one am now rather conflicted about purchasing a Hobie, although I've been contemplating it because of all the good reasons.  I'm just struggling with the principle of buying an "upgrade" to keep it functional under normal conditions.  Again, kudos to Bill, and I'll probably get on board eventually.

Still in .

I think what Bill is doing is fantastic.  I also think that one of the Hobie sponsored people should make Hobie aware of this.  I for one am now rather conflicted about purchasing a Hobie, although I've been contemplating it because of all the good reasons.  I'm just struggling with the principle of buying an "upgrade" to keep it functional under normal conditions.  Again, kudos to Bill, and I'll probably get on board eventually.

Did it.  They were already aware of the issue and have actions in place to correct it.  I added the response earlier in this thread:

FYI, response from one of the guys at Hobie about this issue:

We have experienced some issues with this item - we have the arms extruded for us by an outside vendor. They've had some hardness issue - we now do 100% hardness test in-house before the cranks get assembled - and the issue hopefully is behind us. We are also making an upcoming change to this part and increasing the size of the section - so in the future (likely new model year) the crank arms are going to get a slight change - which we make a change to the adjuster handle as well.

Do you have a pic to share or one of the most recent prototype?

Thanks Jeff, didn't see that. Glad they are getting on top of it.  Carry on... :-)

Here is a picture. The shaft will have bicycle threads on it and thread onto the arm.

I am still in for 1 pair/set.

I am all set up with PayPal to start receiving payments for the arms. As soon as the orders some in we will get the production sent off to the shop.

Please PM me your email and how many sets you would like. You will receive an invoice from 'Seattle Innovations' for $85 for each set plus $6 for shipping. Washington residents will have to pay sales tax too.
Thanks guys, the soon we get payments to the sooner we can start fabrication.
~Bill

Bill,

I don't see a link to your PayPal account.

Willbd

I haven't set up a website with a paypal portal yet .... Pm me your email and I'll send you an invoice

FYI, response from one of the guys at Hobie about this issue:

We have experienced some issues with this item - we have the arms extruded for us by an outside vendor. They've had some hardness issue - we now do 100% hardness test in-house before the cranks get assembled - and the issue hopefully is behind us. We are also making an upcoming change to this part and increasing the size of the section - so in the future (likely new model year) the crank arms are going to get a slight change - which we make a change to the adjuster handle as well.

Well...I dunno about that i LOVE my hobies, but this has been a problem for years (busted 3). If in fact an outside vendor had QA issues, then that means the arms were even worse than normal. I think another possibility is that there are just more mirage drives out there now, and therefore more of them breaking. So they added in-house QA as an additional measure. Doesn't fix the fact they are hollow!

Don't get me wrong, hobies are rad and their designs are rad. They are working out the kinks. It's all part of the process. They should switch to bill as their pedal arm vendor. For real.

Bill if you need another hobie item to improve upon...PLUG IN BEACH CART i would pay vast amounts of money for a well made cart.

2 pairs for me

FYI, response from one of the guys at Hobie about this issue:

We have experienced some issues with this item - we have the arms extruded for us by an outside vendor. They've had some hardness issue - we now do 100% hardness test in-house before the cranks get assembled - and the issue hopefully is behind us. We are also making an upcoming change to this part and increasing the size of the section - so in the future (likely new model year) the crank arms are going to get a slight change - which we make a change to the adjuster handle as well.

Well...I dunno about that i LOVE my hobies, but this has been a problem for years (busted 3). If in fact an outside vendor had QA issues, then that means the arms were even worse than normal. I think another possibility is that there are just more mirage drives out there now, and therefore more of them breaking. So they added in-house QA as an additional measure. Doesn't fix the fact they are hollow!

Don't get me wrong, hobies are rad and their designs are rad. They are working out the kinks. It's all part of the process. They should switch to bill as their pedal arm vendor. For real.

Bill if you need another hobie item to improve upon...PLUG IN BEACH CART i would pay vast amounts of money for a well made cart.

It's not the fact that they're hollow that's the problem.  It's poor material combined with an insufficient polar moment of inertia.  Better material, and an optimized design would allow it to be hollow while still being rock-solid.  That probably means a bigger outer perimeter with the same wall thickness.