Kershaw Direct drive review

[marcus]

Ok. So I WAS going to make up a brushless Savage conversion but I wandered into my LHS last week and there sat a Flux. The guy who'd ordered it had bailed on them so they were somewhat relieved to be able to unload it on me

I'd already ordered the Direct Drive unit and a couple of battery boxes from Dan so they were coming anyhoo.

Well, I like the Flux and don't really have any plans to run a conversion as such, but here's what I think of the Kershaw gear which arrived yesterday anyway.

Direct drive unit

The Direct drive unit itself is a pretty simplistic device, the best things normally are though I guess. Assembly was OK although the instructions are rudimentary to say the least. Definitely need a more comprehensive set of directions.
There is an amount of shimming needed to centralize the gears with respect to each other and also to get them to clear the casing. Taking the instructions at their word gave me a totally locked gearbox

The Delrin spacers used to keep the gear casing halves separated is a cheap shot, should be alloy which won't compress as you tighten them up.

The CNC work is accurate but the finish is somewhat Raw. There are many marks on the metal where a drill bit was plunged too deeply when making holes, you can see two such marks on the pics behind the top side mounting holes. There are 9 such marks on the structure.

A problem I see which probably won't actually have much effect is that the gear casing WILL sit at a funny angle because the mounting holes were drilled whilst the unit wasn't straight. You can see what I mean in the pics, look at the two mount holes on each side.

Once I stripped it, threw the instructions and fasteners away and rebuilt it using my head and my fasteners, it was fine.

So long as the Delrin gear holds together i would say that this appears to be bullet proof. The meshing between the gears is spot on so I imagine they will have a long and happy life working together.





Battery Boxes.

Oh dear.

Honestly.... I feel a bit embarrassed for Dan here because I know he's a real nice guy. but these boxes really are astonishingly poor. I made them up but I knew there were going to be bad, and now they just sit here on my worktop flipping me off.
The instructions were bad, the fasteners are of the cheapest stock and ALL the wrong length.
I cannot find in me to recommend these things. Buy some decent Delrin jobs like Mike sells and make up a strap system yourself.

Come on Dan, ditch these things and get some Delrin boxes made up