I've thought about using epoxy like that, but sometimes adhesives shrink if you try to fill a large area with them instead of just bonding 2 things that are touching. Not out of the question to try.
last resort is have someone at my work just measure it and 3d print a new entire piece.
I've thought about using epoxy like that, but sometimes adhesives shrink if you try to fill a large area with them instead of just bonding 2 things that are touching. Not out of the question to try.
last resort is have someone at my work just measure it and 3d print a new entire piece.
That's true, has happened to me before. I would suggest filling the hole with more than enough epoxy, then sanding the excess after it has dried up. That should work fine.
Put in a couple hours today finishing up this panel.
Backstory: This panel needed some love when I got it. There were several cracks in the trackball housing that had to be superglued back together (I didn't document that, but it was a pretty simple contraption. In addition to that, the joystick was held together by the single screw up by the trigger, and the gate had a chunk missing.
I filled in the joystick gate with an epoxy putty as seen above, and sanded it some more. I made a template from the top side of the gate, flipped it over, and sanded down to that on the bottom to make it as symmetrical as I could.
The joystick handle halves were a PITA. The screws had been over tightened, blowing out the insides of the holes. The screws were just anchored to the shaft (giggity) but were not holding the joystick together at all.
I put globs of the epoxy putty into the inside of the handle, put masking tape over them, and then sandwiched it on the center shaft to force the putty into the holes and into the proper shape. Once it cured the masking tape came right off, but the putty bonded to the plastic very well. A little drilling and a lot of dremmeling later, I had proper screw holes again instead of screw tunnels (before I fixed it you could literally just drop the screws straight through the holes).
Some pics:
Spoiler:
Putty in and drilled
After dremmeling down the putty (the screws are very short)
Thanks man. I'd been after one for a while. I took a risk on an untested lot of 2 panels and carts with link boards. On other panel, the joystick was in great shape but one of the arms that holds the trackball sensors broke completely off, and I repaired that too. I'm just glad I was able to repair both panels, and that the JVS trackball IOs were working
