Since I have a total of 6 of these I thought I’d put forth something due to what I’ve noticed. I’m not a high level thrower, just someone with a lot of experience in quality control, assembly, and R & D of items this size both mechanically and electronically.
The price we pay for a Loop 2020, plain caps, light up caps, and a full set of hardware is very reasonable for everything you get and everything that has gone into it. I’d rather run into a hiccup that’s incredibly easily fixed with common sense, than see people complain, see it yanked, or see the price go up due to additional concerns (or have seen a delay in release).
I’m very happy with mine and very happy to help anyone if they have the brief, non-issue I did with flickering LED lights. It’s as simple as stuffing a piece of spongey foam rubber under a contact and you’re good forever.
The Loop 2020 LED light-up caps each have a pair of battery compartments molded in.
Each battery compartment holds one LR-41 pill battery.
The battery’s positive and negative electrical contacts are each a covex metal strip, one on top of the battery and one on bottom.
Each contact is bent convex a bit so it has a little spring action to stay in contact with the battery with a press-in fit (and maybe sort of help hold it in place).
Each contact (covex metal strip) has a slot in the plastic housing to hold it centered.
This works unless either:
- you receive one that was botched a little, like I did
or - you botch one a bit yamming in a battery without noticing the contact isn’t centered
The metal the contact strips are made out of aren’t that springy and can bend if forced too much by accident and I’m wondering about lots of aggressive use, as well (but no worries after a 10-second fix). If a contact has flopped to the side of its little orientation slot, and someone just yams a battery in without looking at it, or shifting it back into place with fingernail, toothpick, etc., forcing in the battery can bend one contact so that maybe it’s wedged in there OK for now, but if the contact moves back into the slot, the contacts will now be loose enough the battery will rattle inside the housing and flicker (making intermittent electrical contact). The battery can’t fall all the way out if the cap is on the yoyo, because it’s trapped inside there by the yoyo, but I got an “extra” battery in the same package that had a contact already bent, because it obviously fell out of the cap that was not on the yoyo for shipping, someone noticed it was missing in a final test, and wedged in another battery (without noticing or removing the one that fell out in the box). So I got a spare battery in the same box as a bent contact. No biggie, it made me see how to easily mod them all for lots of pulling G’s and bumping around for months or even years.
You can try to re-bend an accidently straightened contact, back more covex again, but the less you move it around the better for the soldering job staying good forever.
What I did (and have done in a lot of similar situations) is this:
Cut a tiny piece of spongy foam rubber (I like using $1 anti-noise ear plug foam) and make a little piece to wedge in under one of the contacts that wants to give you a little room. Of course put the foam rubber between the plastic and the contact, not between the contact and the battery!
The tendency for the compressed bit of foam to want to expand acts like an awesome little spring stabilizer.
The plating on the contacts is nice and makes great contact as long as they’re touching the battery.
I use day-glo orange disposable ear plugs for firearms practice…
a wee hunk of an ear plug works great because it compresses a lot, but expands to create some stabilizing spring pressure, making everything in the battery compartment tight and secure.
I’m actually now doing this to all 6 of my LED Loop 2020’s since they’ll be pulling a lot of G’s. It takes but a moment and in my mind finished them off as reliable against all the jarring and bumping they’ll experience.
But in any case, it immediately and permanently fixed my loose battery rattling around and flickering LED without griping in Ben McPhee’s inbox, YYE’s inbox, causing admin., driving up prices, waiting for mail, or any of that.
I made an investment in these because I love them and wanted spares on hand for some time to come (beating them up), whether I had money, didn’t have money, or if they were sold out. So I have two sets and two spares to enjoy the exact feel and behavior of and interchange parts. I finally have a looper besides 360’s that will both respond well enough to loop but also sleep without rubbing. Super tight gaps like on an Initiator don’t do that for me as easily as even a Loop 360, but with 2020 1-2-3 axle, star pattern, spacer kits you can tinker all over the place without even busting out sandpaper or calipers.
If this happens to you and you don’t have confidence or ability for some reason to fix it, or you need a re-solder from your own abuse or boo-boo… in any case if you have with one of these and you don’t want to return it to the seller or manufacturer, as a lay forum poster and consumer, if it’s ok with YYF and YYE I’d be happy to fix it for free if you send me a few stamps to cover the postage back to you for just the cap or caps. PM me. I’m a radio pastor on a popular network and a local church planter so, despite the existence of corrupt clergy elsewhere, my ID is transparent and I won’t keep your stuff. I can send you all our info. and you can see our chicken coop on Google Earth…
(actually you can also see me, personally on Google Maps, staring dumbfounded like “Whut’s that weird lookin’ thang?” at the Google Maps camera car driving past the local machine shop parking lot, after I just got done making aerospace blade antennas all day, in a pic from 2017 still the current pic last I looked, a pic of the local mill & lathe shop where I only now work occasionally for overflow).
JDB
edited to correct typos