Captains Log / KOBO Testing

Reliability Testing

Development Work

INTRO

During development we put our KOBO Power Reel through a gauntlet of tests over and over again. We wanted to build a robust product we could be proud of and you would have no doubts in. There are 3 main categories we grouped testing into - catastrophic, lifetime, and environmental.

Testing categories:

• Catastrophic: Single failure in lost fish or unusable reel.
• Lifetime: Component fatigue leading to loss of performance.
• Environmental: Saltwater corrosion and intrusion.

Catastrophic
Catastrophic is easily the worst thing that could happen - software failure, board failure, the drag could lock up, the spool could fail, the list goes on. We produced our Beta 1 design and quickly started learning about how drags work. Drags are a simple concept, pressure + friction = torque, but the devil is in the details. Drags create heat and heat is bad.

We tested our reel be generating temperatures far beyond a practical use case:

1. Locking drags at max power: max drag 90+ lbs and speed
2. Thermally saturated the reel: max heat generated in motor and drag
3. Start and stop testing: mechanical shock through system

The goal is to cause the drag surfaces to stick, burnout, load fatigue, or any sort of failure. This also stresses the rest of the system (board, motor, bearings, etc) but really we're looking closest at drag issues.

Lifetime
For lifetime testing we're trying to fatigue the system. This is an endurance test for the entire system and runs fully automated for hundreds and hundreds of hours at loads and speed above any "normal" fishing conditions

1. Drags set at 50-60 lbs
2. Solenoid actuates motor
3. Mechanical load "instant" through system, 50-60lbs
4. Solenoid stops
5. Relieve drag lever
6. Return spring removes 1 revolution on spool
7. Solenoid actuates motor to start again

This again causes the thermals of the system to raise beyond practical conditions and creates a fatigue problem. Starting/stopping causes the board to energize the motor hundreds of thousands of times and create mechanical fatigue conditions. We run this test continually 12hrs per day for over a month. We associate this with over a decade of service.

The top video is a side view and the second is at top down to see the screen and motor actuator.

Cyclic failure is what happens when you bend a paper clip. Bend it once and the material does not break. Bend it several times and fatigue failure happens. Any place where materials are put into torque or tension, this failure can occur. Start and stops on the drive system are also strenuous. If you ran a continues mile its not too difficult but stop every 20 feet, you'd feel different at the end of the single mile.

Environmental
The marine environment is a brutal one - moisture, temperature swings, high pressure water, and corrosion. A good seal design starts with IP69 design concepts. To do this we used standard O-ring sealing concepts, lip/groove housings, and rotary seals. The lip/groove design keeps high pressure water from having a direct path to the O-ring seals. The rotary also have a similar "non direct" water jet path.

Once we had a strong sealing design we entered a 28 day salt fog chamber test. Here the full assembly goes through a 4 stages in a single day - immersion in saltwater 15 minutes, dry, ambient, and humid stage. When the test was completed there was no internal moisture to damage the electronics or drags.

Lastly we reviewed areas for corrosion. We felt the anodized finishes and other materials performed quite well, even avoiding galvanic corrosion issues.

If there are any questions you might have, please reach out! We'd love to answer them.