2021/2022 Falcon Issues (loctite & shaft shims)

FIRST General Forum
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Thanks to everyone who emailed [email protected], or reached out to me personally to report the loctite and washer issues with their Falcons. I try to stay on top of individual reports, but it’s difficult when they’re spread across multiple threads/platforms/etc. Reaching out to [email protected] is the best way to help us help you (and the rest of the community).

Yes, there appears to be an issue once again with shaft screws having an inadequate amount of loctite. In addition, it appears that roughly 10% of Falcons did not have the shaft shim installed. Both of these are problematic. We are addressing these issues both in the short term and in the long term.

In the short term, there are a few things:

New Motors/Replacements

We did receive some more Falcons this week. However, we are temporarily suspending any outgoing replacements and new shipments of Falcons.

We are going through and inspecting each one of these motors. We will be reapplying loctite to the shaft screws, and installing any missing shaft shims. This is being done as we speak, and we expect to be back to shipping replacements and having Falcons available for sale sometime next week.

These motors will have a sticker on the box, saying that they have been inspected, so that customers know which motors have and have not been inspected by VEX.

Existing Customers

I believe this issue started around mid-2021. If you bought a motor from June 2021 until present, I would highly recommend inspecting motors for loctite and the presence of the shaft shim.

You should re-loctite the shaft screws on your motors. The Falcon v2 Upgrade Instructions are a pretty good guide to walk you through this process.

If your Falcon doesn’t have a shaft shim….

If you notice your Falcon doesn’t have a shaft shim, there are two options:

  1. You can contact VEX (link above) and we can send you shaft shims free of charge.
  2. You can buy a box of 25 shims from McMaster-Carr. The part number is 94773A712.

The motor should only have one shaft shim. Please reference the Falcon v2 Upgrade Instructions (link above) for instructions.

If you strip screws trying to open a motor….

If you are having trouble opening up your Falcon, or have stripped screws trying to open up the motor or remove the shaft screws, please contact VEX ([email protected]). We can give you guidance on opening the motor, as well as supply you with replacement screws. One way or another, we will make this right.

VEX and CTR is deeply sorry that these issues have occurred. Pretty much everyone involved with this product is a former or current FIRST student/mentor. We understand how annoying issues like these are for teams, especially at this point of the season. We sincerely believed these issues were behind us following the first run of Falcons and are extremely disappointed that they have returned. Moving forward we are considering all options, including changes to the design as well as the Falcon supply chain.

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Hey, at least our pinions aren’t press-fit on anymore!

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Can we just do it ourselves? I need more Falcons asap please. :grimacing: :pray:

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Unfortunately the ball is already rolling on this one.

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Great to hear, thank you, Jon! This update is greatly appreciated, and that’s a FACT.

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I’m just grumbling out loud. Thanks for the follow up post and the quick remedy on future available stock.

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Oh boy, he’s never going to live that down, is he

In other news, I appreciate the announcement.

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If the motors were purchased in December 2020, should they be good?

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No

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You should just check them anyway.

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Yeah. I figured as much.

They are just already on the robot and it’s gonna take a lot of time to get them off. Time that we don’t have.

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Will you be sending an email to every customer that purchased Falcons for the past 2? years notifying them of this issue? I am really concerned about how teams that don’t check CD are going to realize this is an issue!

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Glad I stopped by here tonight. Just gave the team the bad news. We’re both behind schedule and time constrained by our school (10.5 hrs/week)… we may have to just remove our Falcons from the robot due to lack of time to fix them.

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After seeing one of these threads from a day or two ago, I opened up 10 of our Falcon 500s for inspection today. 3 or 4 of them had no Loctite on any of the shaft screws. 3 of them were missing shims. About 35 of 50 shaft screws total were missing loctite. And the long screws that hold the motors together are of such low quality and stripped so easily (after being factory-torqued to extremely wide ranges from barely tight to impossible tight) that I actually had to drill 2 screw heads out and use bolt extractors to remove them. The M3x50 screw heads are not suitable for torx, in my opinion. They are too shallow and quality torx screwdrivers and bits cannot seat fully. 3 of these were bent when I removed them and the metal is so soft they would instantly want to strip. The quality control is horrendous.

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@Jon_Jack @DRow will emails be sent out to everyone who has purchased Falcons?

It’s great this thread is up, but the audience here is a fraction of FRC and reading these posts isn’t mandatory for anyone.

Are you alerting your customers to fix this before they show up to an event and end up having someone else deliver the bad news that they need to use precious competition time?

For what it’s worth I’m not trying to put anyone on the spot, this is a legitimate concern of mine because many teams won’t have full crews able to attend events this year due to Covid restrictions. In a typical year we could easily lend a hand, but this year this is not the case, so every team should be alerted and get the opportunity to mitigate issues as soon as possible.

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I don’t see mention of a “shim” in the upgrade instructions. Can you provide a picture or better explanation of where we would find this item on the motor? Is it just that washer?

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Yes, this is something being pulled together.

Please see page 8 in the instructions.

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Thanks Jon, appreciate the response on this topic.

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What are the consequences of not having falcon’s with loctite on them? Is this something that needs to be fixed before using the motors at all?

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